Read part 1 - here
Read part 2 - here
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Pavil and his small team had lingered on the crime scene long after investigating officer Khar and forensics team had left the school.
It was a morbid Monday morning he knew, and nothing about its bearing had any reason for cheer. A child was murdered a day previously, the killer was still at large, there were no suspects yet, and the entire story still needed piecing together.
He knew he shouldn’t feel guilty about it, yet he did, for this incident had been the most exciting case Pavil found himself being a part of.
Ever since he joined the ranks of police after passing an impossibly difficult examination and making through rigorous training with highest scores in his class, Pavil had done nothing save look into stolen vehicles, arrest smack heads and drown in mounds of paperwork.
His enthusiasm at being called upon to solve a murder case in his zone was only slightly marred by the nature of its depravity, and with an overzealous earnestness he promised he’d make these criminals pay for a crime so sickening. Who commits murders in schools after all?
He was still unclear as to why the Central Bureau of investigation had to be involved in this, but as orders go, there was to be no questioning, and so there would be none.
When chief investigating officer Khar asked him to stay behind and sweep the area, Pavil took it to be an opportunity and with a determination exclusive to the inexperienced and young set about his task.
What was he looking for?
‘Anything unexpected’, he’d told his men.
Although the chances were skinnier than slim he hoped for a big breakthrough, like finding the murder weapon perhaps.
‘Look for footprints, sharp objects, lighters, matchsticks, anything that might be even remotely suspicious or doesn’t belong on school grounds. Make an intelligent sweep, look close and careful to the ground’ Pavil spoke inspirationally, encouraging his men with a team building spiel and soon enough found himself in possession of something he felt could be a breakthrough.
Pavil didn’t realize when his brisk walk turned into a jog and within moments he was knocking on Khar’s office door.
‘Come in’ came a busy voice.
Pavil couldn’t have if asked, pinpointed it, but there was something about Khar’s demeanour that was both calming and distressing at the same time.
He wasn’t much to look at, this well-known chief of investigation, but if one did observe him they’d notice how effortlessly he could if he wanted to make someone nervous.
Khar could travel under the radar as just another face amongst a billion faces, nothing about him made him stand out, but if you let yourself get sucked into that visage it was anything but ordinary.
On a closer look, his hands seemed huge, brawny even, his neck that hid behind an everyday ordinary shirt was thick, and a lingering long look at Khar’s shoulders put him somewhere in the middleweight boxing category.
The kind of man who could only be realized on close observation and it wasn’t easy to do that because he had imperceptible tactics to throw anyone off balance.
Pavil was sure that Khar had mastered the art of relentless psychological gameplay or maybe he was just blessed with that uncanny art.
‘Sir, we have found a broken mobile phone. No fingerprints, they seemed to have been wiped off. I have submitted it to the digital forensics team and they’ll get back to me shortly’ Pavil prattled restraining his excitement.
‘And what about the watchman who was on duty on Sunday?’ Khar asked without looking up from his paperwork.
‘I have called him this evening for questioning. He had applied for a leave starting Monday and was at the bus station when I spoke to him this morning’ Pavil said feeling a bit nervous.
Khar picked up the ringing phone and almost inexpressively nodded. ‘have you eaten anything Pavil?’ he asked with a smile.
‘Not yet sir’
‘Good. Dr Chattur wants us to see the body now’
Pavil suddenly felt his senses weaken.
This was the first time he was in this morgue. He’d been through enough training and drills to not let the sterile eeriness of the morgue faze him, but the chilled stench of formaldehyde mixed with a faint whiff of death froze him.
It was colder than expected and reeked of disgusting chemicals that his mind could only associate with cadavers.
He’d seen Majid’s body in rigor mortis that morning and as much as he tried to burn that image from his head it kept creeping back, magnifying all the details he pretended didn’t affect him, and now that he was heading towards the autopsy room of the hospital in the morgue he thought himself lucky for not eating breakfast that morning.
Dr Chattur in his clinical disaffection looked like he was chewing something, violating god knows how many health codes, Pavil thought, trying to stray his attention and eyes away from the naked body of the child's corpse that lay open, with a weighing scale besides, on which rested what looked like a spleen.
Khar was nearly as unaffected as the macabre doctor and their artless conversation continued impassively while Pavil tried to keep himself from feeling lightheaded.
‘The entire report will take a minimum of three weeks, but these are the most initial findings, Khar.’ Dr. Chattur spoke as if completely bored ‘Nothing out of the ordinary. The clothes are all intact, no residue under nails. No trauma to head; absolutely nothing except so-called stabbing wounds which are not just stabbing’
‘Pavil, are you noting it down?’ Khar’s voice was subdued.
‘Yes, sir. Clean nails, which means he didn’t put up a fight. So maybe he knew his killer?’
‘Too early for that, maybe he was caught by surprise or it could be too sudden’ Khar said
‘Well, you’d be interested in knowing about the wounds.’ Dr Chattur interjected
‘Three deep slashes two of which are in the abdomen, made with a sawtooth-like weapon with a blunt head which was then pushed deep into the abdominal cavity proving fatal.
The first slash was made on left side of the rib cage but instead of penetrating it merely broke two ribs. The other two wounds, as you can see here successfully perforated the abdomen cavity making enough space for the weapon to easily penetrate.
The second one sliced through the pancreas and the third and final ripped open the liver.’ Dr Chattur’s clinical inflection was undeterred as was Khar’s unbothered inspection of the organs.
‘Now if you inspect these slashes, Khar, you can see that they’re not clean cuts with a sharp knife but in fact, a jagged sawing’ Dr Chattur continued.
‘Hmm, so a saw was used to commit these murders?’ Khar queried, beckoning Pavil over to inspect the body.
‘More like a small saw with about an inch blade width’ the doctor spoke as he watched Pavil lose consciousness.
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