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Read Part 8 - here
Read Part 9 - here
Read part 10- here
Read part 11 -here
Read part 12 -here
Read part 13 -here
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Read part 15 -here
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Read part 18 -here
Read part 19 -here
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The watchman had been sitting in a small windowless room for nearly half an hour waiting for someone to walk in any moment now, but that moment had been delayed and the unconcerned face with which he’d walked in to the police station on being summoned by that good looking young officer was now taking a worrisome hue.
It was regular questioning he’d been told. They were reworking the whole case and starting from the top and these questions were pretty much the same routine that he’d been through over a month back.
The news regarding Majid’s murder was waning and each day its coverage and mention got smaller in the newspapers until finally disappearing and relegating itself to the cheap tabloid like rags that were used to pack fritters and shoes in.
He didn’t have much to worry about, considering how he’d forgotten almost everything about that day; he did, however, remember the snivelling scared man that he’d been reduced to in the presence of that bulky senior officer and today, he’d resolved wouldn’t be that day.
He’d walk in, tell them whatever had to be told and come out.
So what if a child got murdered? kids die every day and what difference does that even make?
His callous confidence and wretched resolve that he harboured just a few hours earlier was slowly deteriorating and now, that he found himself all alone he let himself remember every little detail from that ugly Sunday. Why did he not tell the police the truth from the very beginning? What if they found out and now he was being arrested? But there was no crime he committed. Surely smoking a cigarette was no criminal act, but then he’d lied. How could he risk the only stable job he’d had in years?
He clenched and unclenched his fingers, mopping the sweat beading on his forehead on his sleeves, glancing over to the door every second and convincing himself that they’d just let him go without questioning when the door opened and the younger officer came in, holding some files and a tea flask.
The watchman licked his lips. It had been a rather cold morning, and he could do with some tea. His throat felt parched and he felt his features drawing themselves down into a mousy anxiousness.
Pavil pushed a styrofoam cup towards the watchman, closely watching him hold the cup with great care and letting his fingers feel the warmth through the cup.
He opened a few files, flipping their pages and looked up at the scared man. ‘Is there anything apart from your existing statements that you’d like to add?’ Pavil said peeling some papers out of a folder and placing them on the table.
‘No’
‘Nothing at all?’
‘Uh..No. I said. I..I have nothing to say. Uh..Can I please leave now?’ the watchman panicked.
‘Not until you’ve told me everything you remember from that day’ Pavil said sternly.
‘B..but I have. I..I don’t even remember that day anymore.’
‘I can help you with that’ Pavil said picking up the papers and reading his statement.
‘Would you like to add anything?’ he finished reading and let a resolute gaze rest on the scared man.
The unnerved watchman was confused. He didn’t understand whether he was being asked this question because they’d found out something or was it just a question in its plainest form.
‘Uh..I..don't know’ He said holding the cup that was visibly shaking which he nearly dropped when the door opened and the menacingly dour senior officer entered, looking huger than he’d last seen him.
Khar came in holding some more files and sat across the table next to Pavil.
He held the same grim set face from before the way his jaw muscles discreetly moved accorded him a forbidding look that the watchman immediately knew to be anger.
‘Where were you between the time the seniors left the school and Mrs Sinhal’s arrival to pick up her son Tejan?’ Khar asked in a chillingly subdued voice.
The watchman looked puzzled. He licked his lips nervously, looking at Pavil.
‘The theory is simple’ Pavil smiled ‘there was no one in the school except you, the two seniors and Majid and Tejan. Mr Savik had retired to his quarters shortly after three, leaving only briefly to instruct you to lock the gates, and that was sometime around five. The seniors according to all accounts left much before four and Mrs Sinhal came to the school at fifteen minutes past four, which means there was a small window of a good fifteen minutes’ he paused and waited.
The wide-eyed watchman let go of all his reserves ‘No..no..no.. oh no.’ he cried. ‘I..I..you can’t. oh no..no’ he stood up panicking. Khar motioned him to sit down, but he was terrified. ‘I haven’t done anything.’ he whimpered. ‘it’s not my fault. I’m sorry. You can’t possibly think..oh no’ he covered his forehead with his palm and looked absently at the walls.
Pavil pointed at his statement sheets ‘What is it that you haven’t told us?’
The watchman’s face distorted with guilt and his reddening eyes bulged with tears.
He looked about at the two policemen with a sheepish expression. ‘I haven’t done it’ he whispered. ‘I didn’t want to say anything because I feared I might lose my job. I..I didn’t know anyone else was still inside the school’ mopping his face with the sleeves of his worn down shirt the watchman slowly sobbed. ‘The seniors gave me a packet of cigarettes. Expensive kinds. I’d never seen the likes of them. Thin and blue in colour. They glittered in the sun’
Pavil rolled his eyes at the mention of those cigarettes.
‘I..I wanted to smoke them, but I couldn’t. Being near the school and all. A man approached me looking for a lighter.’ he looked at Khar ‘I..I told him that smoking near school premises is not allowed, so he asked me if there is someplace nearby he could smoke, and..uh..invited me to take a break as well. I know this place a little way ahead of the gate. there’s a bend obscured by a large tree. uh..I often smoked there. I know it’s wrong’ he immediately added ‘but sometimes you need a cigarette. It’s an addiction.’
‘then what happened?’ Pavil asked.
‘Nothing, we had a couple cigarettes. He..uh..had a small hip flask with some rum in it. I..uh’ the watchman paused.
‘You had a drink’
‘y..yes. I thought the day had ended. Everyone was gone. Just a small drink after which I returned to the gate. I didn’t realize how long it had been because Mrs Sinhal arrived shortly after. I was surprised because I didn’t know why she’d come, but I didn’t ask anything’ he looked embarrassed. ‘When she left with Tejan I realized that he was still at school. How was I to know that in that small gap of time when I was taking a break someone would enter and murder a boy?’ he sniffed. ‘I was due for a leave and I wanted the day to end.’
Pavil had so many reprimanding insults to hurl at that wretched excuse for a man that he looked away.
‘I feared I’d lose my job if I told the truth.’
‘Can you describe that man from that day?’ Khar’s cold voice pierced through the watchman.
Looking ashamed he gulped. ‘I cannot say. He wore a cap and very large goggles. Much too big for his face. He was uh.. a tourist, who’d lost his way.’
‘How do you know?’
‘He was asking for directions, and he’d walked over from the opposite direction. Uh..the one from behind the school. There’s a defunct service lane there. People often confuse that way to open into a street, but there’s a dead end’
Pavil’s eye darted towards Khar with a palpable understanding.
‘Do you remember what kind of cigarettes that man smoked?’ Khar asked.
‘Uh..yes. They were the same ones that the seniors had given me. They smelled so different, and I’d never smoked anything like those before. Like cloves’ the watchman feebly admitted.
Pavil sat watching the watchman describe the stranger to a criminal sketch artist as Khar poured a cup of tea.
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