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‘Well?’
‘Nothing new about what she told us, considering how we perhaps know a little bit more than her, provided our information is correct’ Khar spoke with his head buried in some files. ‘But, it’s still news’ he looked up at Pavil briefly ‘that she is leaving Jumaid.’
‘All the best for her’ Pavil snorted, but don’t you think seeing how the Sinhal residence is much farther than Wasim’s, Veda should have reached home a lot later than Jumaid. I mean, I don’t think he reached at eight in the evening at all.’
‘No he probably didn’t’, in fact, he didn’t reach anytime before ten, which makes Nehar’s phone calls to Jumaid a lot more explainable.’ Khar concluded and busied himself again.
Pavil didn’t understand this reasoning at the moment but the more he thought about it the more sense did it make.
Why would Nehar, he’d always wondered a woman of such admirable stature feel the need to implore Jumaid? She had the means, the stature, the dignity and the backing of a powerful family, such as hers was, to order instead of requesting, but then again it was exactly all these things she had to think of to make them.
A rather convoluted confusion of human inconsistencies had marred this case.
‘I do wonder though’ Khar suddenly spoke ‘where was it that Jumaid’s car disappeared for two weeks?’
Pavil had not considered this since Meina had told them that it happened sometime around the end of November and that his so-called friends have returned it a few days ago. ‘maybe his friends did borrow it.’ Pavil said convinced.
‘Perhaps’ Khar looked at Pavil for a long moment and poured himself some tea.
Pavil had begun stencilling an exoskeleton of a new network of questions to the list of people they were going to begin questioning anew.
This was tedious but unavoidable, seeing how they kept meeting dead ends.
What was it that they’d unearth which they didn’t the first time around? His flowchart that looked like it had been growing tentacles had abruptly halted and the light at the end of the tunnel was thinning each day.
Did he wish to talk to the principal, the senior bullies, the watchmen again? Pavil looked at the flowchart where Pavil had circled the watchman’s name in a scornful red, denoting him as a man of interest. ‘he knows something he isn’t telling’ Khar had said, and Pavil had no reason to question his senior but what exactly did he not tell them?
Dr Chattur had called up in the morning. He’d swing by their office for a brief visit he said, and even though Pavil hoped he’d have something new to add to this case, he desperately hoped the bread knife wasn’t the answer they were looking for.
Two more weeks and it would be another year. This case would have dragged on for months by then, for some, it would be last year and Pavil couldn’t bear the thought of this mystery stretching itself into a loop any longer... It had been an important assignment for him initially, but after all these weeks of getting to know and understand the confusions underlying as the very tonal hue to this riddle, he realized how much easier it had been to round up junkies and squatters.
Pavil had allowed the despondency go unchecked on his face and Dr Chattur had noted it immediately. ‘You look like one of my cadavers.’
The fact that he thought the cadavers in the morgue were his, was enough to make Pavil feel the beginning of nausea swelling in the pit of his stomach.
‘You know I could write you a prescription for your condition.’
‘No thank you.’
‘Well?’ Khar asked Dr Chattur, wasting no time as he entered the room.
Dr Chattur put the knife on the table among the files and Pavil saw how closely it resembled the murder weapon. The doctor opened a large register like notebook, and briefly read a few notes he’d made.
‘This could be a murder weapon’ at length he spoke, ‘but it’s not the murder weapon you are after, Khar.’
Pavil exhaled a low slow breath of relief.
‘There are a lot of reasons why this couldn’t be the murder weapon.’ He looked at the knife so as to examine it. ‘Firstly the size of the handle of this knife makes it difficult for the wielder to create the kind of cuts that appeared on the boy’s body. To ensure such strokes, the murderer would have to lay the child on his back to create such slashes.’ He brought about a clinical disaffection to his voice. ‘Secondly, it would be difficult, near impossible for this knife to cut through clothes and make neat slashes as were on the body, one would have to literally saw in a to and fro motion to accomplish that but the occurring wounds would not have been the same as appeared on the body.’ He looked at Khar’s face that hinted at slight disappointment.
‘So this isn’t the weapon in question?’ Khar asked.
‘Not by a long shot.’ Dr Chattur replied ‘though the serrated edges of this knife are quiet consistent with the kind of jagged edged wounds that were on the body, but,’ he pointed at the tip of the toothed edge ‘the surface area on the tips of these teeth would have to be much smaller than these ones here to pierce through the clothing and flesh and enter abdominal cavities, and this handle’ he held up the knife, balancing it to show the handle ‘is far too small and straight to have provided the convenience of easily holding it while sawing through the body.’ He shot Pavil’s paling face a glance. ‘You’re still looking for a saw, Khar, especially one with a handle that is either curved or is easy to hold, with a grip.’ He sat looking at Khar’s vacant face.
It was almost dark, the evening had descended with a noiseless thud, bringing with it an air of frigid restlessness that Pavil couldn’t understand. He felt his feet cold but sweaty at the same time.
It was the kind of nervousness his body exuded during exam times, and he didn’t like how still real that tension felt.
Khar hadn’t said much since Dr Chattur’s visit. They were looking for a saw, someone who wielded a saw, and who could that be?
To Pavil even this bread knife, that lay forgotten on the table looked like a saw, but then it wasn’t really one. So maybe it was something like a saw? Pavil envisioned rounding everyone in the city who bought saws in recent year when he saw Khar pointing at his pocket. ‘Looks like your phone is ringing, Pavil.’
His eyes were momentarily surprised and suddenly hopeful at that call from Welcome Inn.
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