What is more important

Progress

In the meantime, Simon is on the field. She is looking at every inch of every field connected to the market. As it has been a few days, the trails are fading, and Simon’s tension is escalating. Simon is very particular about things and wishes that everything is perfect. Therefore, she is afraid of losing any evidence. She has been on the field since morning, looking at everything while her team is exploring the area. They have marked the trails they found with some chalk to make things clear, but the problem is the trail vanishes right in the middle of the orchid. There are no signs of footsteps or dragging or snatching or anything in the field. If it is put to words, then one can feel as if the sky eats the people who were here a foot away because they vanished into the land. There is no sign of anyone, and Simon is getting worried with every passing second. She heard about Rajinder’s death too. Although she had not spent much time with him, the moments they interacted were memorable. When he first met her, he called her ‘Dabang Lady’ (fierce woman). That is the only thing she remembers about him other than a few HI’s and Hellos. However, to lose a life in a single day and have a death that was so unexpected, she is tense and is not working her best. She is also worried about losing a key witness. She is anxious and so is her team. She came here with her own team and has some people from the police station to assist her. Her team is working but the assistants were so overwhelmed and could not stand that she had to let them go. Furthermore, she is not that evil-hearted that someone loses their friend, and she does not let them go. They are unable to find anything else. Soon, one of her team members comes and hands over the search warrant. She looks at them and smiles.

In the hospital, Ranveer is looking at Amma from the glass in her door and making sure that she is okay. He decided to look after and protect her himself. A few minutes ago, they were about to lose the key lead of their case, but he did not lose hope. When the doctors came out of the door, they told him that she was fine and was out of any kind of danger. They further informed him that she would be discharged by the end of the day. Amma did not suffer any major injuries. All she had were a few scratches. However, due to old age, they were enough to knock her off. More or less, her unconsciousness was the result of the trauma she faced. She is now awake. Ranveer enters the room and walks toward her bed. He sits on the stool near the bed and holds her hand in his hands.

He looks down and says: “We need your help. This case is very important to me, and we need to help Mr. Luthra and Gujrial find justice. Only you can help us.”

Amma jee says in her trembling voice: “I will. I will help you as much as I can. Do not force me please.”

Ranveer: “Amma, none of us wants to force you. All we wish to know is the truth. Kindly cooperate with us. Tell us whatever you can help us with. Also, I think it is no longer safe for you to live in your house. We have decided that you will stay in our house, under strict supervision.”

Amma nods but continues: “I understand what you say but I do not want to create any problems for you guys. You work all day. I do not wish to disturb you.”

Ranveer: “You will not disturb us. Today you will come to my house with me.”

Meanwhile, the police team was looking for the nurse, but they did not find anything in the hospital. They came to know that the camera at the location mentioned by Ranveer was broken for a long time and had not been repaired. They looked at the footage of all the cameras but did not see anything suspicious. Everything seemed normal in those videos. They also searched the area and did not find anyone. They looked on the road, in the field and in the hospital but did not find anything. Ranveer asked them to stop the operation and start working on Rajinder’s funeral.

Rajveer is at Amma's house and looking at the crime scene. He sees that the lock of the main door was broken from inside. He realizes that this kind of break can only happen if someone pushes it from outside. Therefore, it can be interpreted that the attackers entered from the main door and pushed it open. The house also has marks of tires outside it. The police cars are marked a few meters away as they wanted to get some ideas about the car from its tires’ marks. They see that the tires are bigger than usual, which affirms the lady’s claim regarding the car. One of the people on his team loves vehicles and he talks about them a lot. As soon as a car enters the market, he knows about it entirely, from the engine to the springs. Rajveer calls him.

Rajveer: “Can you tell about the car by looking at these marks?”

The subordinate: “Sir, I may know a lot about cars, but I am not an expert or a magician. I cannot tell this.”

Rajveer: “Look at it clearly and tell me whatever you feel or know.” Rajveer says this in a little louder voice to intimidate him. Rajveer is usually calm and composed, so everyone gets intimidated if he shouts or if his voice rises above a certain volume. Even Ranveer does not say a word when he feels that Rajveer is not in a good mood. It is the best thing someone can do to avoid what Rajveer can do when he is enraged.

The subordinate: “Sir, I do not know much.”

Rajveer holds his neck from behind and shakes him a bit: “Do you want to tell or not?” This is an entirely new thing to come from Rajveer.

The subordinate: “If you look at the patterns of the tires, one can say that they are the same as the patterns on the tires of police vehicles. From police bikes to jeeps, all have the same patterns.” Everyone, including Rajveer, looks at the police van tires and then at the patterns on the ground. They are the same. They then look at the guy in awe, as no one had ever noticed this before. Then all of them nods their heads at once to ask him to continue.

The subordinate: “The depth of the marks shows that the car stood here for a long time.”

Rajveer: “15 minutes?”

The subordinate: “I think greater than that. Look at the marks, they are very clearly defined, and it also appears that at the time when the car was standing here, it was not empty. An empty car or a car with one or two average-sized people does not leave such deep imprints that we come here after a long time, and they are still here. Either there were people or some other thing in the car. There are 300 police cars in the entire district, with 125 being jeeps, 80 criminal vans in which we put those people after arresting them, 7 being the ones used for very high-profile criminals, which are locked on every side and you can not see out of that car, 3 busses and the remaining being that cars. It cannot be a bus, so it is out of options. Neither can it be a car, so we eliminate that too.” He looks closely at the marks and the difference between the two marks. Despite the fact that they are distorted, he is analyzing them keenly and whatever he is saying is making sense. He then continues: “Nah, it cannot be a van. Vans usually have different distances between their tires. So, now you have 125 jeeps and 7 other cars which you have to look for to make sense of everything. Also, there are a couple of cars in the district which have the same tires. If any one of them is a jeep, then you can look into that too. However, I doubt that.”

Everyone is looking at his face with an open mouth. He is the one who does not speak much and today whatever he is saying is making a lot of sense. They are shocked and overwhelmed.

Rajveer: “Now I think you should go and get the required data to know the location of all the vehicles in the morning. We want to know about that. It will be our lead.”

The subordinate salutes and leaves.

Everyone looks at him with admiration in their eyes.

One of the officers says: “He is amazing.”

Rajveer is proud of him and replies unconsciously: “Indeed he is.”

When they enter Amma’s home, they see that nothing is in its place. Things are lying around the house, clothes are all over the place, drawers are open, and a few things are broken. There is also glass on the floor. There is also blood on the floor. The team starts to put things in plastic bags so that they can be sent for forensics. Rajveer enters her room to look for something. He surely wants to find something but does not know what. He was always suspicious of Amma, as he used to wonder how someone could know so much. Today is the day he can quench his thirst. He looks everywhere in his small house but there is nothing. He looks in drawers, a cupboard, under the mattress and on the bed. He does not find anything. He then goes into the kitchen and looks in every pot and box, but does not get anything other than certain ingredients, grains and rice. He is about to leave the kitchen when he sees that the area under the stove does not look normal. The house has a mud floor, and the stove is also made of mud. He starts to dig it up and finds a cloth with some things wrapped in it. He opens it and looks at the contents of the cloth in confusion. There is a pacifier, some coins and a lot of letters in it.