Tired
as he was, he grinned from ear to ear when he saw it.
3
hours. 14 minutes, 15 seconds. That was how much time Homicide Detective James
Hardy had spent in the interrogation room. He’d just come out of the room with
every inch covered in sweat, exhausted mentally and physically drained. The
prime suspect in his latest assignment of the Todd double murder case was
unyielding. He had gone inside the interrogation room convinced of the guilt of
the suspect. A very methodical man, Hardy, had left no hair unnoticed during
the investigation and after 9 nearly sleepless days and nights of relentless
efforts, during which he had worked under the scrutiny of the media lenses
employing his acute observation and reasoning skills, he was finally convinced
of the sequence of the events. A confession from the prime suspect would seal
everything up. Now at 2 in the morning, the tense situation notwithstanding, he
was smiling at the picture that he had just received on WhatsApp.
Despite
his firm conviction of the event sequence he had carefully and craftily
reconstructed, the interrogation at some point had made him question himself.
Hardy would never forgive himself if he was in any way responsible for a false
conviction. He thought about how he would normally discuss every detail of the
case with his partner-in-crime-detection Irene Lawrence. This case did not give
him time for that. Nor did it give him Irene, because she was on her holiday, which
was already put off three times. But he still had painstakingly gone over smallest
of details the case presented (like the small stain of blood on the second
floor window and the seemingly watertight alibi of the neighbour) at least
thrice before arriving at his conclusions. During the doubtful junctures in the
interrogation, he had gone over the copious details again in his head and had realized
how his theory was indeed right. It had taken enormous concentration and
character on his part to not just process the information the suspect was
giving, but also to find a way to trap him. Having stepped out of the room after
successfully extracting a confession, the weary detective continued to grin at
his phone.
All he wanted
now was some strong Sumatran coffee, brewed freshly from the coffee beans which
were at his table, the bag still unopened. But this was only his second choice.
What he truly longed for was on the rocks scotch and a night of peaceful sleep.
It was a longing which started taking shape just after the confession. However,
the just received picture had killed that longing in an instant. He hadn’t a
choice but to settle for the second best now. Second best though it was, it didn’t
make Hardy feel bad. And maybe, he thought, that was the effect of the picture
he had just received.
The
picture was just madness, really. Talk to any civilian about it, she’d feel
disturbed at the very least. But that’s what, he figured, jobs like his drove
people to. He felt more certain that without a degree of madness, one couldn’t do
all the work, which involved looking at bodies over and over and at each part
with total attention, looking for bodies in places where you are least likely
to find them, coming up with theories about how the bodies came to be in that
state, came to be where they did, then looking at the area around the body,
talking to people who could in any way be related to the bodies, find those
relations too on many occasions, and finally finding the somebody - people or a
group of people - who was responsible for the body being there. And they
invariably worked with a strict deadline. The picture was one epitome of the
madness.
How the
Todd double murder case alone hadn’t driven him to madness, Hardy didn’t know.
High publicity and Irene’s absence had made it more difficult than it could’ve been.
But more madness awaited him now. The picture had been Irene’s selfie. No, it wasn’t
a selfie from her holiday trip; it was her customary selfie with the new murder
victim. She was called back to work and the game was afoot again. Yet, for one
last time, he smiled at the picture.
