Free Brutal by Uday Satpathy Page A

understood that there was no point in hiding her identity now. She needed to build some trust. This is the only chance I am going to get. X might not respond if I bluff again. She began typing a reply.
    I am a journalist with Century News. Can we talk? I just want to understand why Nitin did what he did? Is there anything more to it?
    Not a single word will go out if you are not OK with it. But if you have something to say, why not confide in me? I have taken interviews of wanted Naxal leaders and Jihadi commanders, all with professionalism and trust. Only what they agree to, comes out as news.
    Trust me.
    Seema
    She clicked on the Send button and started praying for a response.

14

2:30 Am, Ambala City
    T hey hardly came across any traffic as their car made its way through Jalbera Road.
    “Take left from here and drive slowly,” Prakash instructed, as he counted the third lane from Manav Chowk. “And turn off the headlights.”
    Mrinal complied. He reduced the speed to almost 10 KM/hour. “Which house?” he whispered.
    Prakash didn’t reply. The darkness was making it difficult to locate things. He looked hard, trying to find any police tape stuck on the gates of the buildings passing by. He wondered whether Haryana Police even used those yellow ‘Crime Scene: Do not cross’ tapes or not.
    After a minute of anxious looking around, he was finally able to see the familiar yellow tape on the gate of a short building. Mrinal was about to stop the car in front of the gate when Prakash told him to move on.
    “Let’s keep the car a few houses away. We don’t want to alarm anybody by parking a car at night in front of the crime scene,” he said.
    They finally parked the car about 50 meters away in a perfect dark spot.
    “Now what, chief?” Mrinal said with a mocking face. “We break the doors and get in?”
    “I don’t think it’ll come to that. If my intel is correct, we will have no problem getting in.”
    “Can we be charged with ‘tampering with evidence’ or something like that?”
    “As far as I know, the crime scene has already been thoroughly sifted and investigated by the police. So, every piece of evidence that can have any relation with the dead man has probably been collected already.”
    “Wait a minute,” Mrinal asked. “What are we going in for if everything’s already collected?”
    “I have a hunch that we are going to find something.”
    “Wow. Sherlock Holmes,” Mrinal said and sighed. He looked nervous.
    But then Prakash was himself a bit nervous. Ashish, his fellow local correspondent for Globe News had told him that the police wasn’t able to find any key to Afroz’s house. So, they had just chained it from outside. It meant there might be a way to get in.
    Both of them got out of the car. These were summer days, but the weather post-midnight here was cold. Prakash started walking towards Afroz’s house, with Mrinal following him. His trouser pockets were bulging with a few tools he had bought for this adventure. An electrical hardware shop had sold him an LED-based torchlight and a small hacksaw. He had also carried along his favourite Victorinox Swiss Army knife. I look like a burglar.
    On reaching the gate outside Afroz’s house, Prakash looked at the surrounding houses. No lights. No peeping Toms. The metal gate outside the small compound was not locked. Prakash opened it, taking extreme care to avoid making any noise.
    Prakash and Mrinal were now standing on the small ground in front of the veranda. There was a bike standing beside.
    Prakash moved up to the veranda and switched on his torch. He checked the door. A metal chain had been inserted into the door handles on either side of the door and then fastened with a lock. But because the chain was pretty long, it had become slack. So slack that the doors were almost half open. God bless Ashish. This is good.
    “I think we both are slim enough to get into the house through this opening,” Prakash whispered. Mrinal was