12:47 am
April 8, 2012
Shikha’s Residence
Marathahalli, Bangalore
Normally, a sumptuous meal which includes a substantial quantity of dessert would probably make anyone ready for bed early. Despite having all that, Shikha was wide awake, ignoring the fact that it was close to her usual bedtime. She stretched herself on her bed, flat on her belly with her eyes fixed on the first page of the file titled “#43 The Poisoned Pawn”. The handwriting wasn’t a problem, but the presentation was a little too cryptic. Even after spending almost fifteen minutes turning pages back and forth, Shikha couldn’t make head or tail of the case. The first page read:
#43 POISONED PAWN
Sunday, January 27th, 2008
Club of Knights and Bishops (CKB),
Indiranagar,
Bangalore, Karnataka.
Victims: Shankar Shenoy(55) – Dead, Dileep Reddy(47)- Hospitalised
Case Type: Murder
Time of Death: 1300-1330 hours
Cause of Death: Cyanide Poisoning
List of Suspects : Uday Bhatnagar (36), Gulshan Punjabi (26), Alan Silva (31), Ashok Ravichandran (31), Dileep Reddy* (47), Meenu Kunnath (20), Shirin Francis (19), Aniket Mitra (23), Dindigul Ganesh (31), Leela Nayak (41), Yashasvi Sharma (17), Girish Nair (29), Rohan Pai (30), Yogesh Patel (21), Dinesh Singh (32), Deepak Patwardhan (32)
Event at Crime Scene: 12th Bangalore Open FIDE Rated Rapid Chess Tournament (10 + 0)
Refer Neelima-
“Damn it! This isn’t how you write a case file!” Shikha sighed, flipping the pages of the file back and forth yet again, looking for any relevant information that would help her understand the timeline of the events. Taking a notebook and a pencil from her table, she resumed her reading. In the next half an hour, she jotted down several points in her notebook and even marked a few pages in the file with dots. She glanced at her bedroom clock and decided to work on the file for a little longer. At around 2:15 with a triumphant smile on her face, she dozed off.
At a quarter to eleven the next morning, she was done with the domestic chores of the morning and her laptop was beckoning her. She quickly booted it and opened a text document. After typing for nearly three hours at a stretch, getting up only for a solitary bathroom break, she saved her work with a sigh of relief. Shikha then frantically searched her table drawer for a pen drive, which she was able to find within a few seconds. She quickly copied the text document onto it and then picked up her phone and dialled a number.
“Hello, Vipin?”
“Shikha this side. Are you free to meet today?”
“Great. 4 pm sounds good. Cubbon Park? I haven’t been there till now.”
“Nice. Thanks.”
“Have a favour to ask.”
“Yeah will talk about it in the evening. Hope you’ll approve. See you in the evening, Vipin.”
“Bye!”
Cubbon Park was buzzing as always with the usual traffic of health-conscious human beings. It certainly lived up to being one of the biggest stress-relieving spots in Bangalore. Shikha reached the park at 4:10, even though she left her room almost immediately after talking to Vipin, courtesy of Bangalore’s road traffic conditions. Vipin waved at her as soon as he spotted her excusing herself through a walking group. He was seated on a bench constructed along a pavement under the shade of a row of trees. Exchanging pleasantries, Vipin asked, “I assume that you have finished reading the case file and have some questions regarding that.”
“Hmm, yeah more or less. Check this out first.” Shikha replied.
She handed him his case file and took out her laptop and started it. Vipin’s curiosity was well hidden by his patient display over the next couple of minutes as Shikha loaded her day’s hard work onto the screen. She broke the silence a second later saying, “First of all, your case file was very difficult to understand. You are either very lazy or don’t have enough time to properly document the cases event by event. You know how easy it would be if events are written down in a chronological order? Seems like you just took notes when the case actually happened and then that’s all. Case finished, notes finished. No summary, no prologue, no epilogue, nothing!”
Vipin smiled and replied, “You see no one actually reads it and yes, I am a bit of both, busy and lazy. Keeping record of the cases, details regarding the events which led to them or events that happened during and after them are registered in these case files.”
“How do you expect me or rather anyone else to understand the turn of events from your lazy description?” Shikha retorted.
“Sorry for not warning you yesterday,” replied a smiling Vipin.
“Well that’s fine. I actually did something about it. Took me a while, but here you go,” Shikha replied, handing over her laptop to the detective.
“What’s this? Oh, you prepared a report! Quite a detailed one, too!” exclaimed Vipin, scrolling down the text document.
It was Shikha’s turn to sport a lopsided smile now. “This seems really good. Let me go through it properly to check the accuracy regarding the turn of events,” Vipin said, now intently reading the report.
“Do tell me if I made any mistakes. In the meantime, I’m going to eat this sandwich. Didn’t eat anything after breakfast,” Shikha replied as she unwrapped a neatly wrapped sandwich out of her bag.
Vipin stopped reading and looked up at her for a moment. “You skipped lunch to finish this report? You could have done it later, or we could have met someplace else which doesn’t close by sunset,” he explained.
“Relax detective, I wanted to finish the report because it was a really interesting case. Besides, I wanted to visit Cubbon Park ever since I shifted here. Don’t feel guilty. Here, have a bite.” Shikha replied patting his shoulder. Vipin politely declined her offer saying, “You eat, I’ll read.”
“By the way, what does ‘Rated 10’ stand for, the Rated 10 Detective?” Shikha asked, taking a bite. Vipin paused for a moment and looked at his file. At the bottom right corner of the cover – “the Rated 10 Detective” was written. A smile came across his face and he turned towards her. Before he could respond, Shikha asked, “Are you rating yourself 10/10 or is someone else doing that? Who is the jury?”
“No, there is no jury. No one’s rating me. It doesn’t mean 10/10 rating. There’s a long story behind it.” Vipin answered.
“Who’s in a hurry?” Shikha asked quickly.
“That’s another messed up case file, much bigger than this one. Maybe some other day?” Vipin replied, shifting his focus towards the laptop. “Okay, cool.” Shikha responded, grabbing another bite of her sandwich.
Soon Vipin’s face sported a continuous smile as he scrolled down page after page in the document. A few minutes later, Shikha finished her sandwich and she excused herself to find a dustbin. Upon her return, Vipin triumphantly smiled at her. Returning her laptop, he said, “Bravo, you have done an incredible job! With only a few hours at your disposal, this is awesome work!”
Shikha smiled from ear-to-ear upon hearing this. She responded it with a stylish bow saying, “The pleasure is mine. Anyway, this is far from finished. I have described most of the main events, but some things feel off and I have many doubts.”
“Yes, I went through the document and there could be some additions to that. I mean, there are some key points of the case that I haven’t mentioned in my report. That’s because I have them right here” Vipin replied, tapping his temple twice.
“So, we have to discuss this case in detail and then I will be able to complete the description properly. It’s going to take me a few more days to finish the entire thing. I read a bit about this case in the newspapers during that time. It did interest me then, but I was living in Delhi at that time, so the curiosity fizzed out eventually.” Shikha said thoughtfully.
“Hmm, nice. Take your time. And yeah, we can discuss this case properly. But before we do that, I want to ask something” said Vipin.
“Go ahead,” Shikha replied.
“May I hug you?” he asked her with a smile.
Shikha was surprised by this sudden request but she immediately accepted. Vipin whispered, “Thank you for this” into her ears. She nodded and smiled. “Let’s go out for dinner tonight, if you are free.” Vipin requested.
“Oh yes, of course. We’ll discuss the rest of the case too.”
“Sure. Hey, Wait a minute, you had a favour to ask me, didn’t you?” Vipin asked thoughtfully.
“Yes, it’s a simple one. More case files… and permission to be your official record keeper, or equivalent, if there’s really a term for that”, Shikha asked hopefully.
“Yes and yes. Now, let’s go for a walk around the park before it closes,” Vipin replied. Shikha replied with a half-nod and smiled. A minute later, both walked away into the distance talking to each other, probably discussing the weather of the day or about the people walking alongside them or the restaurant options for dinner or the “POISONED PAWN”.
