Operation S (Teaser)

As I stepped down from my shinning new Eliminator bike, I could hear the roar of the waves crashing against the coast. I quickly parked my bike on the East Coast Road (ECR) road and started walking into a long narrow road leading to a freshly painted beach house.

The ECR road has been the best maintained route to Pondicherry. Its elegant curves dotted with small villages had made it a good destination for my most cherished Sunday morning ride.

But today was different. As I reached the huge gates of the beach house, the sentry stopped me and questioned me for my ID. A short, stout police constable came running in from inside the house and spoke to the sentry. I was let in to the sprawling mansion like beach house.

“You are late”, muttered the constable under his breath quite angrily.

I looked at him with disdain and walked up to the porch of the beautiful marble floored bungalow. Such legal and illegal guest houses lined up at frequent intervals along the ECR road. Wonder whose house this is?

“Where is she?”, I questioned the constable.

“Sir”, he scratched his head, which was quite reminiscent of any government worker asking for a small token payment, for letting me know of the news so quickly.

I thrust a fifty rupee note into his hand.

“Second room” he replied and saluted. Money power!!

I gingerly entered the first room. The stench of the dead body came floating in and hit me hard. I nearly vomited but quickly bent down and reached for my hand-kerchief to cover my face.

My childhood fear of dead bodies and ghost movies would come back to haunt me every now and then. But my career choice of an investigative journalist clashed directly with my absolute fear.

As I summoned all my courage and proceeded to the second room, I simply stood aghast by the gory murder. The brain matter was splashed all over the wall. A women in mid-thirties lay seated at the end of the empty room with the back to the wall. Her face and body was covered with blood. Her green saree was also soaked completely with blood and looked bright crimson with the last rays of the sun bursting through the window-sill and falling upon her. She looked very different from the local Chennai people, perhaps a north-eastern woman.

I quickly unloaded my Canon D5 camera and shot some pictures at various angles. Perhaps a small news at the end of third page.

I usually tried to come to a murder or robbery site before the police came, just to make sure they did not divert the case and this had helped me earn considerable amount of money and reputation.

“Sir..” came a quick shout from the constable. I surveyed the room once again to check whether I had missed any important clue to the murder. Finding none, I quickly backed out to the front porch.

“Inspector will come to come very soon sir. Please L..”, he had not even completed his sentence, when I could hear the undistinguishable shrieking police car sirens.

“Quickly sir, this way”, the constable led me through a back route when opened into the private beach behind the bungalow. I had been very lucky to have been unnoticed as I had parked my bike far away from the bungalow.

I quickly made my way out and hid myself behind a small over-turned boat. I had never seen a huge posse of policemen for a single murder. After a few minutes, I gathered all my courage and ran up to a huge crevice in the outer-wall of the bungalow and peered through.

What the hell.. DSP, IG and entire police top brass, all in one place??