Have you ever had that feeling of foreboding?
Like something is about to happen and whatever it is, it’s not right? Have you
ever felt as if you are part of a slow motion movie sequence where some things
are clearer whereas some are rather distorted?
Well, Dev Mehra’s Saturday morning had begun
with this very feeling. Something was about to happen and he could feel it.
“I am just being stupid!” thought Dev, when
he woke up startled, having had the same nightmare again. Today, however, the
nightmare felt as if it hadn’t left his side; as if for some curious reason,
the nightmare was living every moment of his day.
Shrugging, he reached for his cell phone.
Except for a voice mail from his ex, the phone had nothing for him. He hit the
delete button without even hearing the message and clicked his phone shut. With
a deep breath, he closed his eyes shut for just one moment and after that his
body moved on autopilot.
Ten minute shower, toast, tea, three boiled
eggs and a quick scan of the newspaper and newly appointed Assistant
Commissioner of Police, Dev Mehra was ready to fight crime that weekend.
He was on his way to the car, a gift, from
his doting, filthy rich, estranged mother on becoming the youngest ACP in his
batch, when he noticed the girl standing across the street. Smiling, Dev got
into the car and drove towards the child. Her face was smudged with dirt and
mucous and her mishap hat of hair concealed a pair of the most intelligent eyes
Dev had seen. She was his youngest informant and she knew things no ordinary
thirteen year old would ever know. She generally never came near his apartment
unless there was urgent news and though her face never gave away her emotions,
Dev could tell she wasn’t here to give a tip.
He stopped the car beside her and unrolled
the window. She simply looked at him and handed him a badly folded piece of
paper. It was her grade sheet from the municipal night school. Dev had enrolled
her at the school six months ago and today, for the first time, he could feel
pride emanating from him when he read the young one’s grade sheet. With the
promise of a treat, he drove away, feeling positively warm for the first time
in months.
The warm feeling
melted away as he drove into the weekend traffic of Mumbai city. Despite the
city's fairly organized traffic system, it wasn't unusual to while away at
least an hour stuck in peak hour traffic. When he pulled into the Mumbai Police
headquarters, ACP Mehra’s entrance was nothing less than intimidating. In a
short span of time, he had earned admiration amongst his peers and juniors and
respect amongst his senior officers. Constables jumped to a salute the moment
they saw him and as always, he returned the greeting with a nod. For the last
six months, everything had been the usual blur, the first month as an ACP had
been congratulatory cards, likes on social networks, celebration parties and
the comfort of a new SUV courtesy his mother. The next few months had gone into
paperwork, meetings, paperwork and more meetings. Dev longed to get out of the
stuffy cabin and on the field for some real bad ass crime fighting. But
apparently, that was not ACP like or part of protocol.
Today, however, Dev
was sick of the endless paperwork. After five hours of attending to cases on
paper, answering phone calls from his superiors and signing his name on a
hundred different documents, he desperately wanted to stretch his legs.
Around 3 pm, the headquarters
reported warnings of gunshots near a popular eatery in Colaba. Generally, beat
constables were sent to find out the source of the commotion but after the
terrorist attacks nearly five years ago, gunshots in and around this area of
Mumbai city were taken rather seriously. Dev heard one of the police inspectors
saying that a boy had been killed in what seemed like random gang violence. He didn't
have to go on the site, that wasn’t on his agenda for the day, but Dev wanted
to get the hell out of the headquarters and even though this was a murder, it
was a much needed break for him. Accompanied by a constable and a police
inspector, he drove to the scene, his eyes on alert, scanning for any activity
that may seem fishy.
When they arrived
at the scene, a crowd had gathered amidst the colourful stalls and Dev could
hear the weeping of a boy. A pretty girl with wide eyes rushed towards them and
introduced herself as Amrita Iyer. She began to explain what had happened to
the police inspector while Dev assessed the scenario. It was at that moment
when he noticed, from the corner of his eye, a young girl, staring at him. She
was still on the floor and he realized she was one of the witnesses.
His junior officer
came and spoke to him urgently, “Sir, the two girls claim to have seen the
killer. With your orders, I will escort them to the station.”
Dev nodded at his
subordinate and turned to face the girl on the ground. Her face was splattered
with blood but Dev could see that she was beautiful. Her hair fell in soft
curls around her shoulders and her heart shaped face was pale, probably from shock,
but he was sure that on most other days, her skin would have a rosy hue. Her
eyes were a soft brown and the way she was staring at him was intriguing.
“I wonder how she
would look if she smiled,” he thought.
He walked up to her
and patiently waited while she flushed and wiped the blood off her face.
Then
he heard her speak her name.
“Rachna Gupta”, she
said. “Correspondent with India Arises.”
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