ABCD : Any Body Can Die

                                            ABCD: Any Body Can Die

I am Dr. Dimitri Ghosh. I have joined the Emergency Task Force a few days ago as the forensic doctor. I have been told to be acquainted with the cases ACP Debayush Chakraborty is handling. Though Debayush is my friend and of the same age of mine, even then I have to call him ‘Sir’ all the time in the beauru. But I can always understand from his behavior that he dislikes me saying ‘Sir’. But I have to, at least in the beauru.

      This was the first case of mine after I joined ETF, or I may say my first case in my life. It was a pleasant Thursday morning. We all were having our morning tea in the canteen. Debayush, often said Debda by me aside, was having his football practice at that time. Suddenly our Senior Inspector Bikram Agarwal of Mumbai police HQ entered the office and jogged up to the canteen. He said,”Hey Dimitri, I want to talk to Debda over a case”.

“What case?”

“The murders going on in the town. Already two of them had taken place and the third one is going to take place”

“If you know that a murder is going to happen, then why don’t you go and stop it from happening?”

“Because we don’t know the person who is going to be murdered.”

“But then you said that you know another man is to be getting murdered?”

“Who is going to be murdered?” Debda joined the discussion as he entered the canteen and ordered for a cup of coffee.

“We don’t know that who is going to be murdered. But two more similar cases have been witnessed by us.”

“Any idea of the murderer?”

“Not at all. We only get a letter 48 hours ago that states the time of the murder.”

“Show me any of the letters”

“Yes Sir.”

      Agarwal showed us a letter. The letters were all written in bold and in green. The letter showed as follows:-

THE TIME OF THE NEXT MURDER IS 01:02:07 A.M

Seeing this Debda shouted out”Is it the latest one?”

“Yes Debda.”

“Do you want to join us in solving the case?”

“For sure Debda!”

“Good! Now let us see. When did you get this message?”

“Yesterday at about 1:00 a.m. I was relaxing in my house. Suddenly the door bell rang and I rushed to see who was there. But to my astonishment there was no one. There lay an envelope with this letter concealed in it.”

“Okay. Alas! But Bikram Agarwal I can do nothing about this murder. If you want me, I can see for any further murder but not this particular one. As it is too late for it. If you could have brought this letter to me yesterday itself, I could think of something. See, now it is eleven a.m., it means…a…aa…ten...aaaa….yes…thirty – four hours have passed. What can I do now? Only fourteen hours are left.”

“But Debda I don’t think you are leaving the case.”

“No! Not at all. I will handle the case b hook-or-by-crook.”

“Then let us start with it.”

“No wait. I have to do a little research on it. Let us meet two hours later in my room. Till then Bikram you can spend time in the beauru while Dimitri, you go to the forensic lab. Saakshi didi was calling you.”

      I wasted no time in speaking to Debda after I heard about Saakshi. She was a good friend of mine, you can say a special one. I had to speak to her for a few minutes and then I joined Bikram in the canteen. When Debda came out of the room, he told us that he had researched about the case. He told us that the murdered men, as Bikram stated earlier, were Atanu Biswas and Chaitali Sanyal. They were of totally different classes, totally different personality, and not even their blood groups matched with each other. The only thing that matched between them was the fact they both had a cool Mercedes.

“But I cannot recall the fact that why a person should be killed just for he is having a cool Mercedes!” I spoke out.

“Let us investigate a little more about it at the crime-scene. Will we have any of the other officers helping us, Dimitri?” Debda finished off.

“Yes Saakshi.” I stated.

      We all went together to the crime-scene 1, which was in the lowland near the sea. The place was quite peaceful, one can easily commit a crime if he is not nervous. There was a car lying on the road at the far end. In it lay the dead body of Atanu Biswas, tilted in an angle of sixty degree. But as we couldn’t deduce any clue from there, we went on for the next crime-scene. Near the city, Debda remembered that his ATM card had to be renewed. So he went to his bank and did his work. After finishing the work we went to the second crime-scene. However, Debda found a note for him there. He picked it up and showed it to us. It read:-

I KNEW YOU WOULD COME HERE. THAT IS WHY I AM LEAVING THE NOTE FOR YOU.THE FOURTH MURDER WILL BE HELD AT 12:00:00 P.M. STOP ME IF YOU CAN!!!

This letter was shocking to me, Saakshi and Bikram but Debda took it cautiously and walked away. Near the banyan tree, he found something interesting. When I saw it carefully, I understood what he was seeing. It was urine. I heard Debda order me to collect it. This was the time I thought of giving Debda a boxing punch. But later I cooled down and collected it.

      After testing the blood in the forensic lab, I got to find two things. First, the murderer was a man, a male in gender. And secondly, the man had a genetic illness Thalassemia. When I told it to Debda, he told me to find the list of people having Thalassemia. But the list had one problem, it contained the names of four thousand and fifty three people. But after sorting out the dead, the list came to an end at two thousand people. When I reported it to Debda, he said me to carry on further researches. I carried till my working hours at 11:00 p.m., when my research sorted out the people ageing 45-50. It showed nine hundred and fifty seven names. Next day when I went to the beauru, I found Debda was in the board room. When I reached there to discuss to Debda about the list, Debda told me a logical clue,” See Dimitri, all the murder had happened on the public holidays.”

“Yes so?”

“What do you think why would a killer choose public holidays to murder men?”

“Why?” Truly speaking, I was really confused. In my twenty years right from birth, he is the first man to ask a logical question.

“Because he is a government worker. And from that I can conclude that he is a bank worker as the government banks use such printers.”

“So I have to sort out the list.”

“Yes DUMBO!!!”

      After sorting I found out that there was one bank manager who had the disease and was of the specific group ageing. His name was Ajay. Debda ordered us to go to the Ajay’s  house. We went there. His father and wife were at home. He left early for some work. It was a public holiday and the date of the next murder. Debda was the only one who could stop the man to murder someone else. We could not contact Debda after that. But after half an hour, Debda met with us at the highway and we came to know that the man was perfectly healthy and Ajay was behind the bars. On asking Debda about the cause of the murders he quietly answered us that Ajay and his family met an accident three years before just for this Mercedes. That was why Ajay was killing men one by one. And at last, Debda, with a smile added ” Is the case solved or it is solved!”

                                THE END