by BS Murthy
Prey On The Prowl A Crime Novel
Prey On The Prowl A Crime Novel
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Prey On The Prowl A Crime Novel
BS Murthy
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Dedicated to those women, whose loving glances have made my life's journey a joyous sojourn.
Chapter 1 Prey on the Prowl
That June evening, the crimson sun gave in to the dark monsoon clouds to let them end its long summer reign over the Deccan skies. What with the thickening clouds thundering in triumph, Dhruva woke up from his siesta, and by the time he moved into the portico of his palatial bungalow at 9, Castle Hills, the skies had opened up to shower its sprawling lawns. It was as if the eagerness of the rainfall matched the longing of the parched soil to receive its fertile mate in an aroma of embrace, and in the ensuing echoes of that seasonal union, the roots of the garden plants devoured every raindrop, that is, even as their leaves shed the overburden to accommodate the new arrivals.
Dhruva, impelled by all that, stood engrossed, and Raju, the housekeeper, fetched him a plateful of hot pakodas, which, facing the spatter, he began to savour, and before he had finished with the snack, Raju returned with a mug of steaming Darjeeling tea for him. Soon, the refreshed sun resurged to warm up the leaves, even as the satiated roots let the bounty go down the drain. Done with the beverage, Dhruva picked up the sachet of lanka pogaku, to roll a cigar, and finishing that as he reached for the cigar lighter, the rainbow, in its resplendent colors, unfolded in the misty skies. However, when he began puffing away at the cigar, as if dispelled by its strong scent, the dissipated clouds began disappearing from the horizon.
Watched by Dicey, the Alsatian, Dhruva savored the cigar to the last puff, but as he stubbed the butt, and stepped out onto the lush green lawn, the pet followed him to leave its footprints on the damp canvas in its master's tracks. Even as the clouds began regrouping in the skies, he covered the garden to caress every croton and coleus as he would Dicey. But when it portended downpour, Raju led Dicey into the portico and Dhruva headed towards the study to pick up the half-read Crimes Digest of the month. However, as it rained again, he reached the first-floor French window, standing by which he thought that it was akin to the urge of the assassin to revisit the scene of the crime, for a review of the same. Amused by his analogy, he thought as if the rain was obliterating its earlier footprints, but when it ceased raining and the skies turned murky, seemingly mourning the loss of their resplendence, he too immersed himself in the dark world of crime the Digest pictured.
Meanwhile, Raju let Dicey do the patrolling, and soon it began barking at the gate inducing Dhruva to reach to the window, through which he saw a sensuous woman, tentative at the half-open Iron Gate of his mansion. Enamoured of her attractive face and desirous of her middle-aged frame, as he stood rooted, the pet sprang up to the gate, forcing the tantalizing trespasser to beat a hasty retreat. No less affected by her sensual gait in her retreat, Dhruva lost his eyes to her, until she went out of his sight, but readily alive to her loss, he cursed himself for not sticking to the portico. Inexplicably obsessed with her, he rushed to the gate only to see her turning the bend even as Inspector Shakeel came into view on his Bajaj Pulsar.
When Shakeel greeted Dhruva, feeling lost, he forced himself to hug him, just as Dicey leapt up to the visitor in welcome, and as Raju took away the pet, Dhruva led the cop into the portico, wondering aloud what made him scarce, for nearly three months then. When Shakeel began to detail how he had reached the dead-end of the investigation of a double murder he was handling, the detective closed his eyes, as if to avoid reading the script from the cop's body language.
Chapter 2 Shakeel's Fixation
When Inspector Shakeel entered the Saifabad police station, the echoes of the bootsin-attention greeted him, and as he stepped into his cabin, as if calling stand-at-ease, the telephone had started ringing. Soon, as Shakeel opened the dak folder, the Head Constable Karim rushed into the cabin to alert him about a double murder.
"Where was it?"
"At 13, Red Hills, sir," said Karim
"Have you checked about the jurisdiction?" asked Shakeel, who was newly posted there.
"It's a stone's throw away, sir, in our very own Hyderabad," said Karim unable to hide his irritation as if the question questioned his procedural knowledge.
"Who're the victims?" asked Shakeel unhurriedly.
"M an and his mistress, sir."
"What if it's a suicide pact?"
"No sir, they were poisoned by the man's wife."
"Who told you so?"
"Pravar, sir, the dead woman's brother, who said she's absconding."
"Let's see how long she can evade me," said Shakeel, getting up.
"Not long enough, sir," said Karim stepping aside.
When the duo entered the drawing room of that single-storied building at 13, Red Hills, Pravar had drawn their attention to two empty glasses and a half-empty Teacher's Scotch bottle on the teapoy, with khara boondi for company. When Shakeel surveyed the scene, Pravar ushered them into the adjacent bedroom, where M adhu and M ala lay dead on a double cot bed. Soon, as the forensic squad, summoned by then, was engaged in collec
ting the evidence, Pravar, who provided Shakeel a photograph of Radha, M adhu's wife, made out a case that she could have poisoned the couple.
Leaving the corpses to Karim's care, when Shakeel returned to the police station with Radha's photograph, he was surprised to find her there 'to aid the investigation'. But in spite of her assertions about her innocence, Shakeel, whose mind Pravar had poisoned, could see but her hand in the double murder, and so arraigned her as the sole suspect. But as his sustained custodial interrogation failed to crack her, believing in her guilt, with a view to extract her confession, he brought every police trick up his sleeve into play, including the third degree, but to no avail. Though eventually he had to set her free, owing to the judicial intervention, yet he failed to free himself from his sense of failure to pin her down to the murder of her man and his mistress. As he was cut up thus, seeing Dhruva's ad in The Deccan Chronicle for a 'lady sleuth to assist him 1 , he had a premonition that she might try to secure the position to secure herself. So as to preempt her, even in that inclement weather, he had set out that evening to 9, Castle Hills.
Having done with his preamble on a serious note, Shakeel said in a lighter vein that if only Radha were to come under the Dhruva's wings, it could as well portend a romantic opening for him in his middle-age.
"When you began, I too thought that a murderess on the run makes an ideal prey to any womanizing cop like you, that is from what I've heard of you,” Dhruva said, and
wanted to know if he had noticed a woman at the bend. Picking up Shakeel's blank look, Dhruva said in jest that he had expected the cop to have an eye for women, if not an eye on the mafias. However, to Dhruva's light-hearted banter, Shakeel said that though he fancied himself as a womanizer, from what he had heard about him he was no match to him. Dismissing all that as exaggerated hearsay, Dhruva led Shakeel into the study, where the latter poured out the problems the death of the man and his mistress posed to the investigation.
M adhu was hell-bent upon divorcing his wife Radha, which would have left her with a pittance of alimony, making her the prime suspect, never mind she was away with her friend when the illicit couple drank the poisoned Teacher's Scotch to their death. Her motive to murder them made it an open-and-shut case; there was no difficulty in guessing that after poisoning the Scotch, she might have picked up a quarrel with them as an excuse to leave them in a huff. But yet her alibi had become a big hurdle for him to cross over to pin her down, more so for she withstood the sustained interrogation and came out clean even in the lie-detector test!
Unable to hide his admiration for the unknown woman, when Dhruva said as to how such a steely woman could have allowed herself to be so ill-treated, Shakeel said that she could as well be a tigress on the prowl in the garb of a lamb. With the detective evincing an interest in the perplexing case, the relieved cop savored the hot pakodas that Raju had fetched for him, all the while detailing his investigation, which based on hearsays bordered on surmises. However, when he ended his account by stating that the old guard, Appa Rao, told him that Radha reminded him of Mithya, whom Dhruva could not bring to book, the detective, with a perceptible change in his demeanor, dismissed it as learning curve. But as Shakeel persisted with the topic, Dhruva said that it was better they skipped it for it involved a dead woman, and when Raju came to serve them some Darjeeling tea, the detective changed the topic to the politics of the day that was after committing himself to solving the intriguing case.
Long after Shakeel had left him, Dhruva, having delved into his memory bank, was at fathoming the perplexing present.
Could the trespasser be the murderess after all! But then, given his focus on her, surely, Shakeel would have spotted her from a mile, even though the weather was too foggy for a proper sight. And in spite of her compelling face, he himself might fail to spot her if he were to espy her again before the contours of her exquisite frame would have turned hazy in his memory. Was it possible that she was indeed innocent save Shakeel's silly theories; if it were indeed Radha, what had brought her to his gate; did she, as Shakeel thought, came to pander to him to preempt his involvement in the case? If it were so, why should she have been so tentative to begin with only to end up beating a hasty-retreat in the end? Could she be as ingenuous as Mithya though she seemed as seductive; would history repeat itself after all? Well, only time would tell, he thought.
As Dhruva seemed to love the idea of the trespasser being the alleged murderess, a restive Dicey went up to him making him wonder whether it sensed his distraction from its former mistress. Soon, he changed into his shorts and took the pet for a stroll in the twilight, by which time the drains were clear and the roads wore a fresh look glistening under the newly lit streetlights. However, as the roadside trees tried to dry up themselves, the pet and its master got wet, and with the chilly winds making it uneasy for them, as Dicey turned its tail homewards, as Dhruva led it home, Raju said that someone was waiting for him in the anteroom.
Chapter 3
Ranjit's Predicament
As Dhruva stepped into the anteroom, he came face to face with a handsome man with an amiable face that bore the apprehensions of one who feared for the life and limb of a dear one. When the visitor introduced himself as Ranjit, the owner of Oasis Builders, assessing the middle-aged man as self-assured, Dhruva gave him a questioning look. But as Ranjit said that he came to seek his help in freeing Kavya, his thirty-six-yearold wife, kidnapped that very afternoon, Dhruva said in jest that he was not in cohorts with the kidnappers. Hiding his irritation, as Ranjit told him that his ad for a 'lady sleuth' had led him to the Castle Hills, Dhruva in wonder led him into the study, where Raju fetched them some steaming tea.
Ranjit said that he lived in Spandan, a bungalow in jubilee Hills, with his well-qualified wife - LL.B. added to M .A. in English - who remained a homemaker as he was averse to a working wife. Of late though, being barren and bored, as she turned keen on becoming a criminal lawyer, he didn't stall her from enrolling at the Bar, and yesterday, as she chanced to see Dhruva's ad for a 'lady sleuth', she felt that a stint as his 'assistant' would help her further her later day career. Aware though he was about the hazards such an occupation posed, as there was no way of stopping her, once she made up her mind, he had posted her application that very morning, of course, without visualizing that by the evening he had to seek the detective's help in rescuing her from her captors! Ranjit said that he was unable to fathom the vicissitudes of fate but his predicament made Dhruva see the imponderables of life.
Ranjit said that as Kavya's Alto was in the garage, she wanted him to send his Audi home at three-thirty to go to a friend's place; but given his own schedule of the day, he asked her to be on her own by hiring an auto; however, when it started raining heavily by three, he tried to contact her over phone but failed to get her either on the land line or on her mobile; so he called up her friend but she told him that she too was unaware of Kavya's whereabouts. When he rushed to Spandan, he found a ransom note slipped in through the main door that warned him not to approach the cops, but as Dhruva was fresh in his mind, he came to seek his help regardless. Ranjit pulled out the ransom note from his shirt pocket and handed it over to Dhruva, which read:
Ranjitji, be ready with three-crore rupees in thousand denominations (less luggage, more comfort, for us all) to have your wife back with you. Be at the Tanesha statue on the Tank Bund from four to six tomorrow evening in dark trousers and a white shirt to convey your consent. You have only four days to exchange your black money with your brillinat wife; be at the Tanesha between five and eight in the evening (mind the dress code) to take further instructions. Beware of involving the khakis as that would only fetch you your wife's body bag; it's no empty threat as you have her testimony hereunder. Be warned, if you carry any mobile phone with you, we will take the booty as well as your wife over your dead body.
When Ranjit confirmed that it was indeed Kavya's signature, as Dhruva secured the note and said that he would like to alert the cops, Ranjit told him s
arcastically that instead of coming to Castle Hills, he himself could have gone to the Jubilee Hills Police Station. But as Dhruva maintained gravely that he saw a case to apprehend him as the prime suspect in his wife's kidnap, Ranjit lost his cool and demanded an explanation from him. Dhruva said that since there was no way Ranjit could have received the ransom note with Kavya's signature on it, within an hour or so after her alleged kidnap, he should be put under the scanner. Pleased with Dhruva's eye for detail, Ranjit confessed that as he was preoccupied with his work, he could not contact Kavya all day
but found the note only when he returned home in the evening, and added that he just tried to test the waters before he entrusted the case to Dhruva.
As though to outsmart Ranjit, Dhruva turned naughty and said that since Kavya's signature on the ransom note was genuine, it indeed was good news; but as Ranjit seemed lost at the comment, lest he should take him as a cynic, Dhruva explained that if it were forgery, it would have meant that the captors were out to barter her body for the booty. Ranjit, who remained apprehensive, said what if Kavya was bumped off after having obtained her signature, but Dhruva had assured him that the kidnappers were no morons to harm her as Ranjit wouldn't part with a farthing until he had ensured that she was kicking and alive. However, as Ranjit expressed his fears about his wife's possible molestation in captivity, Dhruva assured him that when a man kidnapped a woman for ransom, his lure for money would act as her chastity belt. M oreover, as the handwriting in the ransom note betrayed a feminine slant, the captor was either a woman or a male with a female accomplice, possibly a lover; if it were a woman who had kidnapped his wife, then there should be no violation save a lesbian aberration, and were it to be a man-woman enterprise, then the male enthusiasm for Kavya's possession had to contend with the proclivity of his female accomplice to stall the same; whatever, the idea of the kidnap was to collect ransom from the man and not to molest his wife.
When Dhruva wanted to know his take on the ransom, Ranjit said that he came to seek his help as he did not have so much money, which prompted Dhruva to say in jest that he was no moneylender; but as Ranjit offered to pay him a million rupees for his services, Dhruva said that it might come in handy as and when he handled the cases of the 'hand to mouths'. Ranjit offered to take Dhruva to Spandan, but in an auto for he made it to the Castle Hills by changing into a couple of them via a circuitous route. Patting Ranjit for his presence of mind, Dhruva led him to his Esteem, and on their way to the J ubilee Hills in the snarling traffic, Ranjit narrated his life and times with his wife.
