The muscles in his cheeks and jaws stiffened as Vishal gulped, shoving aside the thoughts of futile faith, and answered Sandeep, "I wouldn't keep my hopes up, Sir. What was the purpose of posting the video if he didn't go through with the ordeal. I don't think he would publicize his failure so grandly, lest people think he is a coward to have stopped midway."
"Call that a policeman's instinct, something doesn't add up to me Vishal. I just can't nail it." Sandeep pursed his lips, breathing in heavily, trying to think it all out. "Where do you think he would dispose of her body? Apart from the common places like abandoned properties, roadside, etcetera?" he asked after a pause.
Vishal flinched as he the mental image of Mitra's mortal remains being found pictured in his head. Pushing that aside, he analyzed, "I can think of three ways: somewhere far from where he actually lives, if he wants to escape getting into anybody's attention; or someplace really close to his residency, if he wants to watch our reaction and play with us further; or he might even leave her in the same place where he killed her and walk away from there, escape to a new place without the burden of the disposal. The third case is the worst one we can face, because we have no idea where that is, and no one can discover it at this rate."
"We'll see. The whole city's on alert and we are watching for each and every report of any sightings," Raghavan reassured.
They spent the day trying to investigate people with the name Sashi, combing the whole city for any suspicious movements, releasing press statements that they are trying their best to investigate the case and trying to regulate the public protests and marches that had been ignited.
There was a surge in the political pressure on Police to resolve the case as soon as possible, if needed arrest a suspect to pacify the public anger and take any means to bring the situation under control.
The situation had stumbled out of hands.
Sashi had been monitoring the situation in his own way. He had spent the night waiting for the police to come bursting into the house, for Mitra's boyfriend to bang his fists on his door threatening to kill him, for people who were in cahoots with Mitra to surround the house and take him down.
As hours passed and none came, he started breathing with relief. He viewed all the news articles, the online conversations and the public outcry. Yet, no one was coming for him.
That meant Mitra had been bluffing about the trap and had blurted the truth out only at the last moment. There was no one else involved.
He watched a freaked out Mitra pacing in her room through the CCTV streaming. He could sense the chaos her mind was in. He knew she understood the consequences of his measures of posting the video.
The next morning at ten, he went to work as always, scanning the public on his way, holding himself normally. He hadn't had any breakfast as an act of empathy for Mitra's lack of appetite. He had walked into her room in the morning holding a plate of toasted bread and jam.
Mitra had stood up agitatedly and tried to charge at him, asking him again and again what he had done with the video he shot, what was happening outside and what he was planning to do.
When he didn't answer her, she threw the plate and food at him, cursing him to die a painful death. He hadwalked away shrugging his shoulders apathetically.
The restlessness, hot-temper and fear with which Mitra had seized him that morning was oddly pleasing to him. He liked the way she waited for him and grappled for him to speak. Sashi smiled to himself as he remembered her face filled with fury and walked on.
People with day-jobs were on their way to their workplaces in the hurry they always had. Once in a few feet's distance and in many of the streets he would come across young adults or people his age watching something in their phones, reading news articles and discussing with their friends about what should be done to catch the culprit, blaming the police and theorizing about the murderer and the culprit's purpose behind the whole ordeal.
As he walked containing his inner peace, Sashi saw a police patrolling van taking a turn into the lane he was walking in.
The spike in the thumping of his heart didn't stop him. He kept walking, not focusing his gaze on the approaching van, giving a half-hearted ignorance that most random pedestrians do on seeing the cops.
The van got closer, slowly, and then went past him, ignoring him. Sashi's lips puckered to a slight, wicked smile of self-satisfaction. He was safe, and so was Mitra with him.
There was only one store for computer and cell phone repairs in the three-kilometre radius of his neighbourhood, ten kilometres away from Mitra's home, tucked in between a men's salon and a ladies' accessories store. It looked neat, modernized and well-kept.
It wasn't Sashi's own store; he managed it and did the major repair works for the customers as the head technician. The owner was an old acquaintance of his who maintained the store as a façade for his illegal business activities, to give him a false identity as a store owner. Despite the crooked purpose of the store's existence, there were always a lot of customers walking in and Sashi loved working there.
He had another helper in the store, a twenty-year-old man named Shashidhar, who took up the minor repair works, cleaned the place and looked after the store when the owner and head technician were both out on their own.
Sashi had hired him for his name and his family background: Shashidhar's mother was a withdrawn woman with barely a tongue to speak while his father was a drunkard who abused them both verbally and physically. Sashi didn't feel pity for them; he simply gave Shashidhar what he wished he had when he was young: an escapadefrom the hell of an abusive home.
Sashi walked up to the store, wondering why it was still closed. Shashidhar usually came ten minutes earlier than Sashi and opened the store for him. He checked his phone for any message sent by Shashidhar stating his reasons for being late.
There were none. He shrugged it off nonchalantly and took out the spare keys he had to the store from his pocket to open it.
He went on with his work for an hour before thinking it was odd for his helper to not contact him at least once to inform him about his absence. He picked up his phone from the store counter and called up Shashidhar. There was no response from him. It was puzzling, yet Sashi assumed he must be having a family emergency and resumed his work.