Doosra Read Free Page B

past three months she had spent in Goa under the circumstances.
    She had been shot at while nabbing the serial killer, and the bullet had grazed her shoulder. The physical recovery had been quick, but the psychological trauma — albeit unknown to Rita — needed to be dealt with. DCP Rita Ferreira had been discharged from duty after the shootout in her last case. Much as she had wanted to carry on — she was chagrined when they had signed her off: “official procedure”, they had said — she was ordered to take time off. Having been taken captive or overpowered by a criminal — if only for a few minutes — and use of firearms usually mandated that the police officer involved be sent on statutory leave and psychological analysis. There seemed little point in challenging that. However, what had commenced as a two-week break had become a three-month hiatus as Rita's therapist disagreed to give her a clean chit to resume her position in the police force in the initial time allocated. Fortunately for her, Rita didn't have to live in her Mumbai flat. She had sojourned to one of her ancestral properties in the small village of Benaulim on the south coastline of Goa. Benaulim has been part of Goa lore for generations: Parshurama — the sixth avatar of Vishnu — had shot an arrow from somewhere above in the Western Ghats, and that arrow descended upon what came to be known as Banavalli: the village of the arrow. The Portuguese rechristened it to Benaulim. The place was full of natural beauty: the sound of the endless sea and the fragrance of local vegetation that Rita had grown up appreciating as a kid. It helped her recover a lot faster than if she had stayed back in Mumbai. In her mind she was ready to resume her duty, but she waited. No one in the bureaucracy, she knew, could or would override a psychological evaluation. The psychobabble of the therapist could never be vetoed. Hence she had lodged at the seaside villa she had spent her growing years in for most of those three months. It was a white, colonial house that had a huge garden in front, and the rear door unlatched on to a private beach for residents. Luckily the neighbours, too, used their properties for vacations, and hence Rita had the beach all to herself. She sunbathed in the day, enjoyed a drink at sunset, swam in the evening. She had spent days, weeks on this beach with her father. They had talked endless hours, late in the night, him telling her about growing up and looking for pastures beyond Goa: a guy, a family, maybe a career. “Someone or something will take you away” he had prophesised. Robert Ferreira's little girl had finally grown up. An inadvertent smile passed through her lips reminiscing the days.
    There were days she supposed that she could get used to this life. She neither needed the money nor the stress. Her parents had bequeathed their only child with more than she could spend in her lifetime. And with her history of broken relationships it still looked unlikely that there would be anyone to inherit it after her. But she hadn't joined the police force for money; there were far better professions to make money if that was what one desired. Police was her calling, she always reminded herself.
    However, three months and numerous sessions later, the therapist's evaluation was decisively complete and Rita was finally on a flight to recommence work. Vinay Joshi, her immediate supervisor and Joint Commissioner of Mumbai Police, had spoken to her about a case that Interpol had asked Mumbai Crime Squad to look into.
    Thus began another one of Rita's chartless journeys.
    It was almost getting to be a cold case, as far as the Belgian Police were concerned, but they had found some new clues that had pointed them towards Mumbai. Joshi had provided no further information, and Rita hadn't yet looked up on the web for any news regarding the same. With so little detail it would have been a sheer waste of time: how could one look at all crimes that