Compass Box Killer Read Free Page A

to his daughter, he said, ‘Seek his blessings; he is like God for us.’ She immediately bent down to touch Virkar’s feet as a sign of respect. Embarrassed, Virkar took a step back. ‘Please go…before I change my mind and take you to the police station.’
    The man’s eyes flew to Virkar’s face in panic but relaxed when he noticed the smile twitching at the corners of the Inspector’s mouth. He motioned to Binky and together they rushed towards the railway station’ s gate.
    Like an anxious parent, Virkar watched them merge with the crowd. Only after they had disappeared from sight did his thoughts go back to when he had spotted Binky’s grainy picture while reading the Sunday edition of
The Hitavada
(a habit he had picked up from his days in the Gadchiroli district of interior Maharashtra). Binky had been lucky that Virkar, probably the only policeman in Mumbai who read
The
Hitavada
, also frequented the bar that she had been semi-sold to. All her dreams of becoming a famous singer in Bollywood had come crashing down on to the stage floor of Lotus Bar. Virkar’s trained eye had picked up the fact that the garishly made-up singer he listened to every other night was the same Binky who had disappeared from her home in Bhopal a few months ago. Years of experience had also made Virkar aware that Lotus Bar’s owner Sadhu Anna’ s connections within the police were so strong that, should Virkar have pursued the case officially, his efforts would surely have been tied up in red tape and consigned to a dusty back shelf of a storeroom full of unsolved cases. As for the underaged Binky, she would have been shuttled from one juvenile remand home to another for ‘protection’ until the paperwork was done, and after having been satisfactorily ravished by corrupt, lecherous officials, she would finally be spat out on to the streets of Mumbai with no choice but to sell her soul to feed her already ravaged body. After some amount of rumination, Virkar had called Binky’s father on the number listed in the advertisement with a plan.
    Virkar walked towards the parking lot of the railway station to extricate his Bullet motorcycle from the jumbled mass of two-wheelers. He had parked it there earlier in the evening when he had bought the rail tickets. As he kicked the Bullet to a start, the only regret that Virkar had was that his days frequenting the Lotus Bar were over—it was one of the few bars in Mumbai that served Godfather Beer. ‘Khao, khujao, batti bujhao,’ he smiled and shrugged, wearing his helmet.
    His cell phone rang just as he was about to drive into the traffic. Cursing under his breath, he quickly extricated the phone from his pocket, half-expecting it to be Binky’s father. It was his boss, ACP Wagh of the Crime Branch Murder Squad. Before Virkar could say anything, his boss’s familiar gravelly voice barked out loud and clear, ‘Virkar, report to Wamanrao Marg Police Station immediately. Senior Inspector Akurle has been found dead in his cabin.’
     

 
3
    D ark clouds rumbled in the Mumbai sky as Virkar stepped into the now sombre-looking Wamanrao Marg Police Station. A constable on duty gave him a sleepy salute and ushered him in. Taking care not to get cornered by the few reporters hanging around, Virkar ducked quickly into the crowded passageway leading to the Senior Inspector’s cabin. His long strides came to an abrupt halt, however, when he heard a woman’s muted sobs coming from one of the typist’s rooms on the side of the passage. At first glance, he couldn’t see anything clearly in the semi-darkened room, but as he craned his neck and focused his eyes past the line of old manual typewriters, he saw the huddled figure of a middle-aged woman sitting in the shadows. A female police inspector was doing her best to console her. Virkar surmised that the woman must be Akurle’s wife. He stepped into the doorway and cleared his throat, seeking permission to enter. The woman looked at him with