MAL01

Saturday 2020

 

Though Nikhil heard the bell sound, he ignored it for the third time, assuming it to be the kids from the first floor. When it came again for the fourth, he felt distracted from the movie he was watching on his laptop. His wife and son went out to the supermarket, as it is Sunday.

He took long steps in anger to reach the main door, he pulled open the door and about to shout at the top of his voice. To his surprise, he faced a tall and fit person in a police uniform.

“What made you take this much time in opening the door?” Suraj, inspector of police questioned.

“Sir,” Nikhil voice trembled, “Sir, the voice of the speaker was full, I couldn’t hear the bell.”

“That’s fine,” police remarked. “See, do you know the person living in the flat opposite to yours? In 203.”

“Yeah, yes sir, yes,” Nikhil, still not out of the surprise of police arriving at their doorstep.

“Do you know any of his family details?” the police questioned in series, as planned.

“No sir. He is the only one, who lives in this flat,” Nikhil answered, but he wanted to know what exactly happened. “Any problem sir?”

“Yes,” police said, “We found him dead, in his flat.”

“What? Dead?” Nikhil couldn’t believe, “I saw him the last night, when he was going into his flat.”

“We found him lying on the bed, dead, an hour back,” police narrated the way they landed here.

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“Hello, police station.”

“Yes, RDM town one head constable speaking.”

“You need to come urgently to Nandan apartments, sir,” Rakesh, Asst. Manager of Prominent Pvt. Ltd spoke.

“What’s the matter?” the head constable handed over the phone to the inspector, who just arrived at the station.

“My manager was lying on the bed, dead. When I came to see him this morning,” said Rakesh in a hurried voice, “come quick sir.”

“Okay, we are coming, don’t allow anyone go inside and touch the body.”

Police entered the apartment guided by Rakesh. Flat 203 is on the second floor of the building. The rooms of the flat are clean, things are undisturbed, not signs of theft, no marks of injury on the body, no stains of blood on the floor. The bed is too tidy, with no signs of a struggle, and the person dead appeared to be in deep sleep. Police searched for red lines on the neck but failed. And finally declared that poison is the cause of death when the body started to change its color.

 

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Vikram, the manager of Prominent pvt. Ltd., which was one of the leading exports and import companies in the city of Mumbai. Vikram founded the company in 2015, just five years before. Company was into profits within no time, but from a few months the graph of Prominent company showed declining traces. Though Vikram found and managed the company internally, he was not known to anyone. While some other person acted as the manager in his place. 

Police searched for evidences, as this case became crucial when poison entered. The doors of the flat are closed, windows are locked from inside, no traces of robbery or unwilling atmosphere. Search began, to decide between suicide and murder.

From the main hall to the left, they were led into a room, while the bedroom is on the right. The room was not brightly lit as hall, there was only a bed bulb, and room was shielded from sunlight by the thick green curtains. The corners are too dark to reveal the things lying there. But with a keen observation they found something unusual in the right corner of the room. A rectangular iron box.

Police constable who assisted inspector, pulled the box with gloved hands into the light. The window curtains are pushed away allowing the sunlight reflect from the surface of the partially rusted iron box. Which is full of ash, highly smooth and brittle sheets of burnt papers.

Inspector kneeled himself beside the box and to investigate the burnt materials. He gently moved the upper layers of the solid soot, to find the remaining’s of the original material, which was burnt. Nothing came to their minds, they were astonished when they found, what was burnt.  

Almost everything was burnt, at the base they found a small piece of the corner of a two thousand rupee note. Yes, the black material was the result of the burning of the currency notes. The burnt material was so large in quantity, that they could not believe, how much the money could be.

“What is this?” inspector questioned the Asst. manager.

“Sir, I don’t know sir,” Rakesh was also in the same amused state, “am seeing this for the first time.”

“What actually this man does in your company?”

“He is our manager, but no one knew this, expect me,” Rakesh was hired by Vikram personally, “he wanted me to keep this a secret. Though he is the manager and founder, he never acted that way, never came to office, but done everything being behind the curtain. He was reason for the top position of our company.”

“Then what was the reason for his disguise?”

“I never dared to ask about it, but I came here every day in the morning and evening to submit the files and reports. Vikram sir believed me so much that he gave a second key of his flat to me,” Rakesh told everything that he knew.

“Oh, then how can we know about his? His relatives, parents, friends, do you know anything about them?”

“No sir,” Rakesh recalled the days, to remind something about his boss, “sir,” Asst. manager almost shouted, “I saw Vikram sir writing a diary. Though I never look into his personal things, but many times I noticed him sitting at the table, writing diary.”

Quickly everyone dispersed in all directions to search for a light brown covered diary. After 15 minutes of vigorous search, they found the diary behind the old books in manager’s locked cupboard.

Will the diary reveal the reason behind his dead? Will it become evidence for the burnt notes?