Kartik Khandelwal

“That woman, pal!” I screamed in relief as I stretched my arms in air while Kavita walked outside the restaurant behind me. “She’s a pain in the ass.”

“I was just thinking,” Prakash said with a smile, “How embarrassing it is to be interrogated as policemen ourselves.”

“Waiter!” I waved a hand upwards. “Our bill, please!” Then, I again turned at my friend and told him. “It’s like our everyday business now.”

Prakash turned his head down at the table as the waiter, wearing his white uniform, arrived at our table with a tray in his hands. The tray had a glass on top of it, with a white slip wrapped and rolled inside. He kept the tray on our table and left. I got up and advanced my hands towards the pocket at the back side of the trouser. My eyes suddenly fell on him and I asked with a smile, “What happened now, huh?”

“I was just thinking,” He replied. “How an innocent child turned into a demon.”

My smile faded as I glared at him. “I know hiding truth from police is no good choice, but we needa do it.”

“We’re doing it all wrong,” Prakash looked into my eyes. “If we tell the police the later part of the story, maybe we can find him.”

“I know, but he told us the truth by believing in us.”

“You know we must tell the police about him.”

“Yes, but the game’s pretty much fucked up. Do you actually think that police would understand us?”

“I--”

“Police would impose all the charges on Shekhar! We needa do it slowly and completely, without any disturbance, ‘cuz it’s very fragile.” At this sentence, he also stood up while I opened my purse and kept the money in the glass. “Today’s the first day of our investigation. Let’s not waste a second on this now.”

I opened the gate of the restaurant and walked outside towards the footpath beside the thoroughfare. “Now we’re outta the investigation area, so breath deep and forget everything that happened, okay?”

Prakash, who followed me, turning left towards the parking lot beside the restaurant, replied, “Okay.”

The thoroughfare was full of different colors of cars all around. The thoroughfare was two cars broad on both sides, with a line that divided it into two lanes. The footpath was full of families and individuals walking here and there for their work--some wore casual clothes as they walked with their families, while others were on job duties. It was a common sight here, but there was one thing that prevented the day from being normal--it was a partly cloudy day. We walked towards the parking lot beside the restaurant while overtaking a person or two every second. The parking lot was an open ground-like area cemented at the bottom which had white lines to park cars. I sat on my black Honda Civic car and Prakash went round the car to sit on the passengers’ seat beside my seat. I opened the car with my keys and then opened the door. Then, with a hand on top of the door, I sat inside the car. Prakash was also sitting beside me when I closed the car’s gate and, while pushing the key on the key-knob of the car, asked him, “So, where’s the address of the jail where we’re gonna meet our first suspect?”

“Wait, Kartik, are not we supposed to meet our new group first?”

“The group can wait, Prash,” I replied with determination and excitement in my eyes. “Imma interrogate him first, and then we’re gonna say hello to them.”

“Wai-- No!” He tried to stop me, but when I’m too excited, I don’t listen to anyone else.

“It’s decided, Prash!”

Manuel Levi

With my binoculars in my hand, I glared at a white building with ‘Connaught Place Police Station’ written on a red-and-blue banner on the top. The Station had policemen walking here and there, both on ground or inside the station with documents, trays, used glasses or cups of tea in their hands. “Must be lunch break,” I thought as I observed some idleness in the scene. “It’s soon gonna become interesting.”

I was crouching on the rooftop of a certain building painted faint yellow. I wore a khaki shirt over a plain khaki cargo pair of pants. My shoes were khaki too, and I was in desert-colors from top to bottom. I was using such a creepy coloring combination to camouflage in the surroundings and no one can see me.

Suddenly, I saw a man coming out and whispering to another policeman. Indian policemen wore khaki colors too. Then, the two men ran inside and others surrounding them constantly glared at them like something serious had happened. I sat some two lanes away from them, so there was no chance of them catching me spying. Therefore, I was relieved when I had a short smile at them. I took out my radio and reported, “Elliot Mark-VII, over.”

“Elliot Mark-VII, what’s the status,” came a quick reply.

“Disturbances observed, over.”

“We’ll look over the matter. Over.” The man on the other side said and cut the transmission.

I looked at it again from my binoculars and saw that everyone had gone inside and an ambulance was summoned. At the same time, a black Civic stopped at the gate just at the back of the ambulance, in a distance. Some nurses and other people got off the ambulance from the back and ran inside. Other three took the stretcher as they went inside. Two small figures came out of the black car, one wearing a navy blue coat suit and other wearing a monotone shirt-pant combo. I paid no heeds, but then the man in navy blue suddenly ran inside, watching the disturbances as the other man followed suit. Suddenly, I focused on the face of the man running inside in coat-suit and I was shocked. With my mouth wide open, I said, “Ins-Inspector Kartik Khandelwal…”