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Word Count : 4500

Disclaimer : Sensitive content ahead. Please read at your own discretion. Underage readers are requested to refrain from reading.

Target : 120 Votes

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65 | The Butcher's Present

| 19th May, 2023 |

| Morning |

| 1130 Hours |

Hinduja stared at the statue of the lady justice in the corner, evading the DGP's staunch gaze.

"I need words." He voiced out curtly. "Not your silence."

She clasped her fingers on the table, finally looking him in the eye.

Aravind Hariprasad sighed, "Just yesterday, you asked me to keep an eye on the latest news, and within the course of one night, this entire drug and arm thing has transpired."

He intertwined his fingers on the glass base of his work table. "I believe that I estimate my own student's limits very well. So, tell me now, the drugs and arms found in Malvika Bohra's luggage and residence in Malaysia— He paused. "Do they have any connection with you?"

She maintained her poker face, keeping a strong eye contact with him. "Yes."

Aravind shut his eyes close, shaking his head in displeasure. "I hope you know that this is a crime? Fabricating evidence to get someone incriminated is clearly against our ethics. It's definitely not something I have taught you, have I?"

"Violating a person of any gender without their will—" She clenched her jaw. "How big of a crime do you think that is?"

Aravind's eyes went agape. He pressed the tip of his index digit on the bridge of his glasses. "What do you mean?'

She dropped her gaze on her lap.

It was just this morning when her little one sat on her lap.

"Malvika Bohra is my son's biological mother." It almost felt as if she had swallowed acid. Everything burnt; her mouth, her tongue, her throat, her chest, absolutely everything.

If possible, Aravind Hariprasad's eyes went wider than before. He stared at her dumbstruck. "How even?"

"She—" Hinduja gulped. "Malvika violated him." Now, even her eyes burnt.

"You mean to say that Malvika Bohra sexually assaulted Mahadevan?"

"Yes." A barely perceptible whisper escaped her lips.

The DGP held his forehead in shock. "How is this even possible?" He paused, looking at her again. "A man as powerful as Mahadevan Dogra, how did she even do that to him?"

She licked her upper lip and shrugged. "That's something even I am not able to understand."

"This is unbelievable." Aravind clicked his tongue. "But still, what you did was wrong, bacche. That is not who you are."

She chuckled mirthlessly, as her eyes watered. "For them both, I am ready to be everything I never was."

"Even if your ethics are at stake?"

She smiled, shifting her attention towards the statue of the lady justice. "Over the course of last six months, he and Anirudh made me realize that there is something to my life beyond my revenge, and it's in that very 'beyond' where they both live. Vijay bhai was always there, but along with him, now I have a family too."

She paused, glancing at him. "And when it comes to family, when have things ever been completely white or completely black? The line between both blurs eventually." Her eyes met his. "Mine blurred the moment I realized that I can't lose them, at any cost."

"Yes, I am selfish, but I am tired too. For once, I want to dress up for weddings, birthdays, and anniversaries." Tears dropped from her red-rimmed eyes. "Not for funerals."

Aravind smiled dolefully. "Alright."

Just then two sharp knocks rapped against the wooden door of the DGP office.

Hinduja quickly wiped off her tears and sat with her shoulders square and back ramrod straight. The poker face was back.

"Come in," Aravind announced.

The door opened to reveal the DCP standing at the entranceway. He walked in and closed the door behind him. Taking two crisp steps forward, he lifted his right hand and performed a salute. "Jai Hind, Sir."

"Jai Hind." Aravind nodded. "Settle down."

Raghav passed a firm nod, his gaze falling on the criminal profiler sitting on one of the visitor chairs for a split second.

He made his way towards the other chair and settled down in it.

"What happened, Raghav?"

"Sir, our media liaison officer tried to contact Kabir Sardesai and Shehrazaad Bose. While Sardesai is out of India for some official purpose, Bose is working on some other important story. Both of them denied getting involved in this initially, but somehow the media liaison officer convinced them." He paused, exchanging glances with Hinduja. "Now the problem is, they have agreed to help us with the evidence but not now. We will have to wait."

"What rubbish! We don't have much time, officer!" The senior officer hurled out. "When are they going to come on board then?"

"Probably, on the 26th or 27th of May, sir." Raghav sighed.

"So, what are you planning to do next?"

Raghav glanced at Hinduja. "Sir, Rao and I planned on visiting Vaikunth Patil for questioning tomorrow, but now that Bose and Sardesai are not going to come anymore, I plan on going for the question today itself." He announced. "In fact, now."

"I concur." Hinduja added.

"Alright, I'll join you both." The DGP adjusted his glasses. "Patil is not easy to deal with."

"Yes, sir." The DCP got up from his chair in an instant, followed by the profiler and the DGP.

Around fifty minutes later, an SUV passed through security posts of the Union Minister's estate.

The valet performed a salute as all three of them got out of the SUV simultaneously. He checked their identity cards and called on the intercom to inform the in-house staff about their visit.

Shortly after, Hinduja found herself following her mentor and the DCP into the official residence of the Union communications minister.

They twiddled their thumbs in the waiting area for five minutes, and at the beginning of the sixth second, the union minister's PA led them into his office.

Clothed in a formal grey suit, instead of the quintessential kurta and pajama, Vaikunth Patil shot up from his leather office chair styled in the likes of a throne, with his hands joined together. "Namaskar, Hariprasad Sahib!"

"Namaskar." Aravind joined his hands together.

"Jai Hind, sir."

"Jai Hind, sir."

Two firm voices, one male and one female, echoed in the confines of Patil's office.

"Jai Hind." He waved off his hand, looking at Hinduja and Raghav, his eyes resting on Hinduja for one or two seconds more, their previous encounter flashing right across his eyes.

"Any news about my Snigdha?" His tone turned gentle.

"That's what we are here for, sir." Raghav's gaze hardened. "To ask you about Snigdha. Where is she?"

The minister scrunched his brows together. "What nonsense! How will I know where my daughter is?" At the drop of a hat, his eyes softened again. "She is missing from May 1!"

"Inspector Prakash Dubey." Aravind voiced out.

All the blood drained from the minister's face in a trice, yet he displayed a practiced and polished, poised demeanor.

"Dubey is your informer, isn't he?" Aravind asked, without beating around the bush.

Hinduja stood at a distant corner, observing the range of expressions on the minister's visage.

"I don't know what you are talking about." Vaikunth Patil straight up denied.

"Let me make it very clear, sir." Hinduja clasped her hands behind her back. "You blurt out the truth; your daughter comes back alive." She paused, taking a step forward. "You hide the truth, and death shall hide behind your daughter's back instead of life."

"The choice is yours." She added, her disposition unwaveringly calm.

Vaikunth Patil clenched his fists and seethed. "I swear, I will transfer you to Port Blair, woman!"

"Perfect location for a vacation." She shrugged. "I'll be really thankful if you do post me there."

Raghav hid his chuckles behind a series of coughs.

"Ugh!" Vaikunth Patil scratched his scalp. "Your personality is going to lead you to the doors of hell someday, young lady! Control it!"

"And your denial of the truth is going to lead your daughter to the doors of heaven, I assure you." Hinduja shot back. "So, out with it." She tipped her chin, meeting his enraged eyes. "Now."

Vaikunth Patil sighed in defeat. The thought of loss of his offspring weakened him further.

"Yes." He mumbled.

"I reiterate." Raghav announced. "Is Prakash Dubey your informer?"

"Yes, he is." Patil nodded.

Hinduja and Raghav exchanged glances with Aravind.

"On 13th May, at 2:20 p.m. in the afternoon, a CCTV clip from the SIT headquarters shows Patil eavesdropping on our discussion outside the conference room. Shortly after, he is seen placing a call to someone in the waiting room." Raghav explained. "Was it you whom he called?"

"Yes." Patil gulped.

"What was the purpose of his call?"

"He called me to inform me that your team was planning on zeroing in on the abduction sites." The minister replied. "That's it."

"That's it?" Aravind quirked up his brow. "Didn't Prakash call you multiple times that night from the control room again? To give you live updates about everything that was happening that night? Including the fact that Officer Rao, SI Bedi, and I diverted our vehicle to Bhagwantpura instead of driving to Brahmanagar?"

Sweat trickled down the minister's forehead like bullets.

"Yes, he did."

Raghav sighed in irritation. "Let me ask it very clearly, sir. Even though your daughter is one of the victims this year, are you involved in this case by any means?" He weaved his arms across his chest. "The clock is ticking, sir. Confess now itself, or we have to follow up with other methods."

In an instant, the minister broke down into a crying mess. "I swear on my Smitha and Snigdha, I have no idea about anything else. I put Dubey as my informer in the SIT office, only because I thought that you people might not be working on solving the case diligently like the teams from previous years did." He sniffled. "I just wanted to stay updated with all the progress regarding the case." Rubbing his face with his palms, he whispered. "I am just a father who wants his child back. I have no other ulterior motive, I swear."

"Alright." Aravind nodded. "Tell me something. After Prakash called you in the afternoon and at night on the 13th of May, did you disclose all those details in front of anyone else?"

"No," Vaikunth Patil denied.

"Give us a minute then, Mr. Patil." Aravind smiled. "We will be back shortly."

The politician nodded, wiping his nose with his kerchief.

Hinduja, Raghav, and Aravind got out of the office promptly.

Resting their feet in the waiting room, all three of them looked at each other.

"I don't think he is lying." Aravind passed his verdict.

"Me neither." Raghav adjoined.

"I feel so, too." Hinduja sighed.

"But then, if it is not Patil who is behind all this, who is it then?" Raghav scratched his chin. "I checked the CCTV footage from that day multiple times. I even got all the rooms and cabins in the SIT headquarters scanned for any kind of bugs." Glancing at the minister's office door, he resumed. "Prakash Dubey, Patil's informer, was the only suspect, and now we are seemingly at a dead end again."

"Feels like a maze." Aravind licked his lower lip.

Hinduja, meanwhile, surveyed her surroundings keenly. "We know that Prakash works as Vaikunth Patil's informer." She tossed the ball in the court. "But what if Dubey is not Vaikunth Patil's informer alone?"

"What do you mean?" Raghav probed.

"What I mean is, there is a possibility that Dubey was spying on our team for not Vaikunth Patil alone but for someone else too."

Raghav shook his head. "I checked his background thoroughly, Rao. He was working for Patil alone." He paused. "Plus, that day in the afternoon, in that CCTV clip, from his finger movements on his phone in the waiting room, I could deduce that Dubey seems to have placed only one call."

"There is a clear difference between what you see and what's the reality, sir. Dubey might have called that other person outside the SIT headquarters." Hinduja remarked. "There is a clear difference between what's visible to the naked eye and what's not visible to the naked eye."

"I concur." The senior officer added. "She has a point."

Suddenly, realization struck Hinduja like a truck. Her eyes averted towards the minister's office door in a quarter of a second. "Wait a minute."

She dashed in its direction and pushed open the wooden barrier with the other two men on her tail.

The minister shot up from his seat, sensing their presence.

"Mr. Patil," Hinduja breathed out. "Where were you when Prakash Dubey called you that afternoon? At night as well, where were you?"

The minister massaged his forehead, seemingly deep in thought. "I was here, in my office, that afternoon." Then, correcting the position of his watch, he added. "And  I was with my wife having dinner that night."

"Okay." Hinduja nodded as Aravind and Raghav looked on, already discerning the direction in which her questioning was moving forward. "In the afternoon, on 13th May, when you were on that call with Inspector Prakash Dubey, was there anyone else present around you at that time? Anyone? Even your wife or a servant perhaps?"

The gap between Vaikunth Patil's eyebrows narrowed as he stared at them for a second. "Wait, let me check. I remember something. Just let me make it concrete."

"Go ahead." Positioning her fists on her waist, Hinduja waited with bated breaths along with Raghav and Aravind.

The Union minister called a security guard in and went through the visitors' register of the month. After a minute, he raised his gaze from the register.

"Go out." He instructed the guard who strode out of the office immediately.

Then settling his visual senses on all three of them, he said, "Now I remember."

"Who?" Hinduja breathed in.

"Five of them." He responded. "Mr. Jayachandran Bohra and his chief legal advisor Mr. Jaidev Kanwar, Mr. Vikram Seth, Mr. Anirban Sarkar, and Mr. Mahadevan Dogra. None of the staff members were allowed to come inside that afternoon including my PA. On top of this, my wife was not present at home that day too."

Hinduja's frame stilled for a second. She gulped, prolonging the composed façade.

Meanwhile, Aravind averted his gaze to look at Hinduja with concern marring his phizog while Raghav appeared a bit bewildered at the newfound information, particularly after hearing the last name.

"What were they here for?" Hinduja probed further.

"Nothing in particular. They are all good acquaintances of mine except Mr. Sarkar and Mr. Dogra." Vaikunth paused. "Although, that day, we did have a talk about the construction of a nuclear plant this year."

"Alright." Hinduja nodded. "But why didn't you tell us about them before?"

The politician seemed apologetic. "I didn't exactly remember it."

"Last two questions."

"Please go ahead." Vaikunth Patil tipped his chin.

"Out of all those five men who were present with you that afternoon, that is, Mr. Jayachandran Bohra, Mr. Jaidev Kanwar, Mr. Vikram Seth, Mr. Anirban Sarkar, and Mr. Mahadevan Dogra—" Her voice faltered a little. "Did any of these five men receive a call during the meeting that day? After or before your call with Dubey?"

"That's difficult to remember." The politician sighed helplessly. "Give me a minute. Let me recollect."

"Take your time." Hinduja tipped her chin, folding her arms across her sternum.

Vaikunth Patil nodded and settled down in his chair, thinking deeply.

Seconds turned into minutes in absolute silence.

Hinduja exchanged glances with her mentor and the DCP.

"I guess I remember now." Vaikunth trailed. "Although, I am not exactly sure."

"Just say it."

"If I remember correctly, both Mr. Bohra and Mr. Dogra received a call each on their respective phones after I ended that call with Inspector Dubey."

Hinduja's back rigidified even more. "Last question. When you were talking with Dubey, was the phone on speaker mode?"

Vaikunth chuckled awkwardly. "Oh, that! Well, I actually have a bit of a hearing problem while conversing on the phone, so I do answer my calls on speaker mode. Not always, but sometimes I do."

He cleared his throat. "Moreover, all of them are my well-known acquaintances. I mean, I can't exactly say that about Mr. Sarkar and Mr. Dogra, but then again, it's a known fact in our circle that almost everyone has at least one informer in the police department, so I didn't feel the need to hide about Prakash Dubey from them."

Hinduja sighed, massaging her glabella.

"Okay."

Roughly five minutes later, Hinduja maneuvered Raghav's SUV out of the communication minister's residence.

"This is a maze." Aravind trailed. "A literal maze. Five men were present around Patil during that phone call with Dubey, all highly influential, including Mahadevan Dogra, the chairman of the Dogra empire, and Anirban Sarkar, the heir apparent of the Sarkar clan. Other than them, Jayachandran Bohra, Jaidev Kanwar, and Vikram Seth were present too." He listed out the names, one after the other.

He took a look at his student for a second. "Giriraj Dogra's daughter, Darshana Dogra, she died in 2019, right?"

Raghav nodded, "Yes."

"And quite interestingly, she was married to Vikram Seth at the time of her death." He added. "Vikram and Jayachandran are distant relatives and business partners at the same time. To be precise, Vikram Seth was Mahadevan Dogra's dead aunt Darshana Dogra's husband."

"Both Mahadevan and Jayachandran received a call on their phones after Patil ended his call with Dubey." Aravind remarked. "According to Hinduja's profile of the leader of the syndicate, it is clear that the leader is a psychopath with extreme financial and hierarchical strength, possibly belonging to the Christian faith. Now both Mahadevan and Jayachandran are at the top of the food chain, especially Mahadevan, but we don't know about their mental states, do we? On top of this, both of them are Hindus." He exhaled deeply. "Still, Mahadevan and Jayachandran can't be ruled out from our lists of prime suspects, yet."

Hinduja stayed quiet, focusing on driving to the police family quarters to question the next person on their list—Inspector Prakash Dubey.

"Sir, I would beg to differ here." Raghav objected. "I won't comment about Jayachandran Bohra, but Mahadevan Dogra being the main culprit of this case is definitely not possible."

Aravind quirked up his brows. "Why so?"

Raghav's shoulders slackened as he gazed out of the window. "Sir, I know Mahadevan from my time as a bachelor's student at the Imperial College of Engineering. He was my batchmate." He looked at the DGP, meeting his eyes. "Same batch, same year, in fact same class as well. Just that he was majoring in dual degrees, civil engineering and architecture, while I was a single major student in civil engineering, although we shared almost all of the classes in Civil. He was pursuing his degree with his identity hidden at that time, going just by the name Mahadevan, so none of us ever came to know who he was even after graduation. It was only when I saw his picture in a business magazine years later that I came to know about his real identity."

"Oh," Aravind nodded and peeked at Hinduja, who was still focused on driving the vehicle. "But what makes you think that he can't be our possible suspect?"

"I can't exactly pinpoint, sir, but he is a savant, sir—first in order, in all the subjects, in all the semesters. A gold medalist." Raghav recollected. "In college, in our entire batch, it won't be wrong if I say that Mahadevan was the quietest of all. Extremely reserved. He was never seen around in any parties or celebrations, maybe because he hardly had any time left on his hands because of the multiple jobs he used to do after college got over. Moreover, even if you see his pictures on the internet now, you will be able to imagine his appearance from back then, but for a man as strikingly good-looking, well-built, and tall as him, he avoided women like the plague."

"In my whole life, I have never seen someone as taciturn as him." Raghav smiled. "I remember, we were grouped together for a collegiate-level project in the fifth semester. He was the project head while I assisted him. Just an hour before the final level of the competition, we came to know that one of the opposing teams presenting before us had actually plagiarized our work. Our whole team was devastated. Mahadevan, meanwhile, stayed calm. Despite the odds, he actually presented that same thing in front of the professors."

Raghav chuckled. "Two hours later, our team came to know that the opposing team was disqualified because they plagiarized our work. Turns out, Mahadevan got our project patented a month back. Since we were all college students, the opposing team thought that we wouldn't have gotten our project patented. But then, it was Mahadevan on the other side and that man is extremely hard to understand. You will never know what's going on inside his mind. You will never know when or how he will turn the course of the game around."

"But this doesn't prove that he can't be the culprit, does it?" Aravind drummed his fingers on his knee.

"As I said, sir, I can't exactly pinpoint it." Raghav sighed. "But it can't be Mahadevan Dogra. It's my gut feeling, an intuition you can say. He is just not that kind of a person, and he is definitely not a psychopath. I have never seen him getting interested in anything religious as well."

Half an hour later, Hinduja steered the SUV inside the iron gates of the police family quarters.

"Prakash Dubey is a single man." Raghav trailed. "He lives in block 8, quarter no. 141/2."

"So," Hinduja turned her head around, "the eighth turn from here?"

"Yes. The quarter on the second floor of the 1st building in the eighth turn."

"Okay." She nodded and turned around, navigating the automobile towards the said location.

Just as they reached there, Hinduja pulled up in front of a hibiscus bush erect right in front of the building in which Inspector Prakash Dubey resided.

Hinduja unlocked the doors, and all three of them stepped out of the SUV.

Pointing his finger at a quarter on the second floor of the old and yellowish building, Raghav tipped his chin. "That's where he lives. Currently on leave."

"Time to give him a surprise then." Aravind rubbed his hands together.

Hinduja chuckled.

Aravind led the way, ascending the stairs, followed by Raghav and Hinduja.

The moment they stepped in front of Prakash Dubey's government-sanctioned quarter, Hinduja's gaze fell on the silver nameplate bearing his name, affixed to the wall beside the door.

Raghav knocked on the door twice while Aravind rang the doorbell.

Quite shockingly, instead of someone coming to open the door, the door slowly opened on its own, exposing them to a foul and putrid stench wafting in the air from the inside of the quarter.

Stunned, all three of them immediately pulled out their guns, gloves, and shoe covers from the pockets on their clothes. Putting on the gloves and shoe covers, they covered their nostrils with their handkerchiefs.

"Fuck." Raghav mumbled, slowly stepping inside.

"This does not seem good." Aravind remarked and entered inside, being tailed by Hinduja.

All three examined the living room to find it empty, but as they walked further into the inspector's residence, the putrid smell turned even more intense.

"This is a one-bedroom quarter." Hinduja voiced out, "Let's get to the bedroom first."

"Yes." Raghav nodded.

"Prakash!" Aravind called out. "Are you inside?"

He was graced with nothing but silence.

The bedroom door was slightly ajar. Raghav provided a light shove to the door, causing it to open wide.

"Oh my god!" The DCP could barely control the urge to puke and empty the contents of his stomach.

Inside Inspector Prakash Dubey's dimly lit bedroom was a single wooden cot with a worn out mattress, a blood soaked flower-printed bedsheet, and a pillow on it. On top of the mattress rested a gory headless corpse, bouts of what looked like raw human flesh scattered around it.

And right next to the bed was a small teapoy, on which Prakash Dubey's swollen and decapitated head was placed vertically upright, as if on display, the raw red flesh jutting out a bit from the base of the chopped neck.

The top of the plastic teapoy, the bedsheet-covered mattress and the pillow, were all submerged in the deepest shade of desiccated ichor. Some of the slightly coagulated ichor was still dribbling down from the edges of the teapoy.

The floor appeared to be the birthplace of a crimson torrent, while the wall beside the cot bore the grotesque remnants of blood, splattered like a macabre painting.

The fetid and malodorous stench confined in the bedroom combined with the horrific sight was enough to make even a healthy human vomit out everything inside his or her stomach.

Have you ever held a human head, by the way? A head that has been chopped off from the body?

Hinduja gulped, blinking her eyes thrice. For some reason, she felt dizzy. 

I have.

I have held my grandfather's chopped head in my hands.

She gulped once again and tapped her forehead vigorously, her mind turning blank for some moments.

Why do doctors call it grey matter if its white and red in color? Like blood red?

Because when I tried to stop all those fluids and other things from flowing out of her skull with my bare hands, I noticed that all of that matter was actually whitish in color mixed with the red hue of blood.

Perspiration trickled down her face and the bridge of her nose.

Reposing the back of her head against the doorsill, she gasped for air. 

"Inu!" Aravind rubbed her back soothingly. "Breathe, Bachhe, breathe!"

"I am fine." She nodded, closing her eyes. "I am fine. Just give me a minute."

He nodded, absolutely tensed. "Okay."

At last, two minutes later, she took control of her senses, as her eyes settled on the pink colored note placed on the top of the decapitated head, kept vertically upright on the tepoy.

She slowly made her way ahead, carefully, not stepping on the gory river on the cement floor.

Her hands shivered as she picked up the note. Prakash Dubey's cropped hair gave her gloved hands a prickly feeling.

Her gaze waded through the content of the note as she felt her mentor's presence behind her while she could hear Raghav hurling out orders on his walkie-talkie from a distance.

Surprise, surprise!

Your actions have enticed the butcher back into town.

Loved the butcher's present?

To, The SIT, With Love

(●'◡'●)

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All fine?

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