Prakash Kedia

‘Fort’s Hospital’ was written in orange in some free-style font outside the white complex building. Inside the room of the ground floor, I sat, watching the plants and greenery of the small garden made outside the window. Between the window and me was a white bed where Kartik sat. I turned to my wristwatch, which showed the time fourteen-fifty. “It’s been about an hour since he’s like this,” I murmured. I, with the expression of boredom on my face, stood up, turned back and started walking towards the door. I had walked just a step when suddenly a heard something from behind. “Agh…”

I turned back and looked at Kartik’s bed. He was getting up from his bed. “Kartik!” I screamed and dashed at him. “Don’t get out of the bed, pal!” I pushed him down back again. “So, do you need something?”

“No,” Kartik replied while massaging his forehead. “My head is hurting.”

“Maybe that’s because you fell on that stuff,” I replied. “Anyways, how did you faint?”

“I-I don’t know,” He replied. “I… I just saw that woman’s body and I fainted.”

“Just like that? You gotta be joking me, pal,”

“Nope,” He replied. “That’s what it is.” Then, he suddenly changed his topic. “How is everyone else?”

“You’re okay, and hearing that, they left to complete their assignments. I was kinda free, because I had nothing to do. Mr. Mukesh was checking his traditional transactions whereas Richa and Sonia were checking on some files.”

“Oh, okay. So, I got some work for you too.”

“At your will, monsieur.”

“Go to the HQ’s Security Room, where Ayush used to work, and check with Mr. Mukesh the last few days at DPHQ. I’m getting a feeling that the ‘four’ Ayush was talking in his last words was about the moles. That’s where the only ‘three’ we had.”

“What do you mean?”

“I mean,” I explained. “He talked about ‘three’ in his last words, right? That ‘three’ must refer to the number of moles we found out, or to be more precise, the suspects we thought were moles.”

“So he meant to say that there’re four moles?” I confirmed.

He nodded with his determined frown face. “I heard that the checking about the transaction and all was complete. Take Mukesh, he’d be of great assistance.”

“Uh, okay.”

I was at the parking lot of DPHQ and I just got off the car. I closed the door of the car and took out my phone. I dialed a number and kept the device on my ears. “Mr. Mukesh?”

“Yes?”

“Sir, I’m Prakash, and I want you to meet at the Security Room as soon as possible.”

“Why do you want to meet me there?” He asked.

“We needa investigate and recheck the footage of Mr. Vivek to find out about the ‘fourth mole’.”

“Oh, okay. I’m on my way. See you there in about ten minutes.”

“Yeah, ok.” I hung up the call and then dialed another number. “Hey, Saurav, come meet me at the Security Room.”

“Why, sir?”

“You see, I’m in a big trouble here because of you shitheads. Just get a liter of kerosene and a matchstick. Imma burn the whole room. Moreover, make sure no one sees you, ‘kay? In five minutes, quick!” I hung up my phone and started walking towards the small door in front of the lot. “The back gate got no cameras,” I thought as I entered the corridor and looked here and there. It was empty and no one was around. I tilted my head right, and then left. I entered inside the blue creepy corridor. Suddenly, I turned rightwards which was connected to a stairway. I walked down some meters with various blue doors on my left and entered the stairway. I walked downwards and entered a black corridor with some black-and-white flooring. I turned left and entered the first door.

I opened the door and looked inside. I saw some dozen young men working on their screens, walking here and there with pens, cardboards and papers in hand, or typing on the computer. I looked at one end, and I found Mr. Mukesh standing there beside another man. “Hey, Prakash!”

“Wait, you said you were gonna be ten minutes late,” I said.

“Yeah, but I later found that I was near to this area, so here I am!” He replied. “Anyways, let’s get back to work.” He turned at the man whom he was talking to and said, “See, on twenty-fourth, he was talking to a woman. Does she work with him in any case?”

“Uh, lemme check,” That man said. He tilted the pages inside the yellow folder and checked for something inside. He suddenly stopped in one of them and said, “Here she is. She works with him on a murder case.”

“He works in too many cases,” Mukesh replied. “Okay then, let’s see if he talked to someone the day before yesterday at the café.”

“Yes,” He clicked on a button and the next clipping started playing. “It’s all thanks to the efforts of Mr. Ayush that our work is so greatly reduced.”

“Yes, it sure must have been a pain in the ass, keeping a watch on a man on the footage of over dozens of dozens of hours,” Mr. Mukesh folded his arms. “By the way,” He acted casual. “Do you know who must have killed him in the middle of such a good day?”

“No, sir, but there was a time a man came here for getting footage of your work,” That man narrated. “I gave him that on the first day, but on the second day, Mr. Ayush was there, and he refused to give it.”

“They asked for it so freely?”

“He had money,” He said. “And tons of them, in fact. He gave us a hundred grand for just an hour’s or so footage.”

“Must have been rich,” Mukesh replied. “So, what happened?”

“Sir was threatened. And yesterday, we all know what happened.”

“Nothing else?”

“Nah,” That man shook his head. “But, I still can’t digest that there were entirely no fingerprints on the blade except his own ones.”

“What do you mean? That blade had no fingerprints?”

“Yep, it only had the fingerprints and the DNA of Ayush sir. It’s still confusing, because if there was a killer, his DNA must have been there.”

“That’s crazy.” Suddenly, he looked behind and saw that there was no one inside the room. “Hey, where did everyone go?”

“I sent them…” A voice came from outside the door. Suddenly, Mr. Mukesh saw an arm, wearing grey coat, coming in with an axe in his hand. “Emergency evacuation surely works…”