The Third Meet
“How can this be true?” Vivaan had lost all hope now. He was not expecting such a thing to happen now. At this moment? Obviously not. He was getting furious. He could’ve done nothing. He was almost declared the culprit. And now he had given up.
All his dreams, all the help, whatsoever it maybe, which his dreams have done of A.K. and Rajveer, was now seeming worthless.
“Now you don’t lose hope, Vivaan.” exclaimed Sharma.
Rightly said. He was the one who had given all hopes to Rajveer and Sharma. And now he was losing hope, just with the dates being shifted. Was he reasonable now? Was he overreacting? Will find out for sure.
Sharma and Rajveer were friends. Not everyone knew that but kind of good ones now. And their friendship is not that old. It was two or three cases before that Rajveer and Sharma got to know each other. It was at the very twisted moment when Rajveer had asked Sharma, “Sir, why did you not say a word today?” to which Sharma also replied, “Saying doesn’t mean winning at all times”.
This was how the two became friends. And till now they both have a clear idea about who is right and wrong after every first hearing of a case. They both like to work together. Like to hang out sometime, maybe.
Backing on to this current state, which they are in now. They are not that clueless. They now know that they can surely win this in the next date.
So they should not worry right? They should just do a run-through of their plan this night and should go to sleep?
Wrong.
They were discussing the run-through thing suddenly, there was a wham noise at the shutter of the garage they were seated in.
They had been sitting in this garage in the backside of Vivaan’s house. And it had the kind of door which opens like a shutter. The shutter was opened from the outside.
And there were three men standing there. Known yet unknown personalities.
One was with a recent, very recent French accent, other was with a buffed physique and other was with a constable’s outfit.
“Ram Singh!” shouted Rajveer on that rainy night where even the slightest of the talks needed such shouting.
“Hello sir. Sorry for changing sides, but money can buy you something, right?” Ram Singh replied laughing hard.
“Hello to my worthy opponent here, Mr. Sharma!” exclaimed Albert with a jolly face.
An evil face in reality. Irfaan was holding two knives pointed at Sharma and Vivaan.
Ram was holding dual 9mm pistols pointed towards Rajveer and Albert was grinning continuously.
“Sit, why don’t you!” said Irfaan.
They all sat, three of them scared. Three of them confident. Three of them with weapons, three of them unaware.
“How did you get entry here?” Vivaan was scared while asking this.
“Listen boy, when elders are talking, you won’t be talking. And if that happens again then you know what happens to you.” Albert took a pause and started again, “Regarding your worry about the entry, we killed your two guards and your dad is a hostage there.”
“Let’s finally start the story!” said Irfaan.
“What story? Sharma, don’t be scared, they can’t kill anyone of us. Because that will obviously lead to a new stir in the media and that these cowards cannot afford. They might be here to beg us for some help which is up to us to help or not. Simple!” said Rajveer bursting into laughter.
Irfaan couldn’t take it. He seriously couldn’t. This laughter of Rajveer was getting on his nerves. With every laugh that came out of his face, sweat on his collar was increasing. His grip on his knife was tightening. He could have killed him there and then but Albert was present there.
Albert. He was calming Irfaan and was continuously patting on his back. His patting was helping but only to a small, very small extent. Ram Singh too wanted to kill Rajveer but he was also controlling on his nerves.
Albert was in no such mood as he was having a feeling that things might be ending up in their favor. Maybe the need to kill will be sufficed in their further talks? Maybe they walk out clean-handed?
So he started talking. “Story begins now. Rajveer, what do you think? All the evidences that you have got till now are enough to prove that Irfaan is the one who has planned Samar’s murder? All the hard work that you’ve put in this case is worth the win that you are getting. Wrong! Absolutely wrong. Let me tell you the whole thing. Everything is planned. Your every move had been calculated long time back and clearly thought over to yield you nothing of that magnitude. The nerd guy at school, the dealer at the Dharamshala rave, even the finger prints were left deliberately! Everything was done deliberately. To guide you on to the path which leads you nowhere.”
As these words were coming out of his mouth, Rajveer was sinking in his place. He was sinking in his place. He was sinking like a ditch. He was sinking like he was in the middle of some ocean.
Same was the condition of Vivaan and Sharma. They both were also completely unaware of such a deep planning. A planning which was going on much more earlier than they even started to think about it.
He continued, “Each and every move had been walked over about twice to lead you absolutely nowhere. The maximum evidence that you could have got from your investigation could have been that the murder was committed by a 9mm pistol from a short range, but you could have never found that pistol. Because the murder was not committed by a pistol. It was shown, just shown to you and the whole freaking world.”
His voice was becoming louder and harsher and moving with every sentence he spoke to the three. He was hurting them exactly where he wanted to- in their hearts. Deeper somewhere within the aorta. So that the blood supply could be stopped or something might choke them.
“What did you think, the ball was in your court, it never was. And it never will be. Thanks to Ram Singh. A very disciplined employ of your department. Whom you could never doubt. How can he go against you? He was trained a long time ago. By Irfaan only. And who else would dare of doing that? Irfaan paid him very well, like very well. And that leaded him to betray you, you Mr. Rajveer Shikhawat.”
Rajveer had almost died. He had spend all his time, all his sweat, all his hard work on this case, and now these goons, out of nowhere, take everything away, citing that it never was his hard work. The actual work was done by them?
Wrong.
He started, “Rest is all clear. But how the fuck did you manage to postpone the dates?” and ended up shouting.
“Good question, sir”, said Irfaan Qamil.
“Simple. Very simple. We just killed someone in Sarita Roy’s family, so that she would take a family leave and that too a very long one. So that the next day, the judge is of our favor and the judgment changes from life imprisonment for Vivaan to hang till death” explained Albert.
Rajveer took a deep breath. A very deep. So deep that he had never taken ever before.
Then he started, “Well, I was getting scared for no reason. The most important evidence, the finger prints have matched and the guy is in jail and will be present in tomorrow’s hearing. This you guys, you fools don’t know. Because you just walked over my steps just from the upper layers. The lower ones were never actually explored by you. Those are the layers explored by only those who live in the real world. Who exist in the real world. Not like you, Irfaan, who have always lived in darkness and think of lighting up my lives? Huh! You don’t know that the right person is caught this time and he will be present at court tomorrow. His finger prints will also be present tomorrow. A test in the court will be thereon conducted and the culprit will be you, Irfaan Qamil. Then there will be life imprisonment for you! Death sentence for you and nobody else, not Vivaan and not Adi, Jay, Hardy or Shivansh because it was you who played with the youth-like minds of these students.”
What a speech. Absolutely what a speech. With what ponderous magnitude was it said.
To shut everyone’s literally everyone’s mouths especially the three unexpected guests.