THE HARBINGER OF NOR'WESTER

The Reluctant Witness

Biraj and Vaibhav quietly trudged up the stairs. Biraj seemed to dismiss his fears as soon as he left the room. Vaibhav left the matter and went through the papers visible over the ziplock bag. The papers appeared to be manually typed, the ink blotted by water. Some of the edges were burnt.

Biraj crossed the reception desk, past the Inspector's office to the lane that ran beside the stairs that led to the basement. Few steps ahead was a large jail cell. Two sides cordoned off by walls and the remaining with steel bars. The steel door within the bar frame was bolted with a heavy lock. Another door beside the jail led further inward, to what Vaibhav thought was the interrogation room.

Three more people idled inside the jail. Two of them lying on benches, while the other one was strolling along the length of the cell. He momentarily turned to see Vaibhav and then went back to his strolling.

Biraj crossed the door and disappeared behind an adjacent door. Vaibhav put his hand on the handle, looking the expanded hallway opposite to him, ending at sky shades. Vaibhav breathed and opened the door to enter the interrogation room.

The interrogation room was divided into two parts, with a wooden partition in the middle. Each room with a single bulb hanging on the middle. The first room through the door, was empty except of a few chairs and makeshift stove for making tea. The other room was more packed with a steel table is the middle. A man sat proudly on the one side of the desk and two empty chairs lied against the wall on the opposite side.

Inspector Bimal came out of the room looking defeated, in his hand he held a rifle.

"You saw the dead body?" He asked Vaibhav.

"Yes, I did."

"Well, we didn't kill him!" Bimal pointed out.

"No, lightning did!" Vaibhav answered normally. Bimal twitched his face in response turning to Biraj, who fiddled with the tea cups near the stove. Vaibhav followed the Inspector's gaze. Bimal did make some sense of the news but it was as if being afraid was very inconvenient to him.

"That, his rifle?" asked Vaibhav.

"He had on him when we arrested him," Bimal handed over the artillery to Vaibhav.

"Didn't you arrest him with a truck?"

"We arrested him in the jungle and later found the truck upturned inside the forest."

"He was abandoning the truck with his friend inside?" Vaibhav held up the rifle at his eye level.

"Probably misleading us..."

"Or running from something worse." Vaibhav opened the barrel.

"Anyway he is not talking," Bimal cracked his knuckles, "I would resort to effective methods but only if you say so."

Vaibhav looked up to Bimal and blinked twice. Biraj came up to hand the inspector a cup of tea.

"He could very easily walk away," said Biraj, "say that he was a innocent bystander. We have nothing to connect him to the rifle, it's ordinary, you can find it any household. We can't prove that he was arrested the way we say he was..."

Vaibhav smiled and held up the rifle. "This is no ordinary rifle. Manchester 42," he ran his finger in the barrel, "chamber built for custom made 6.2. This is a connoisseur's choice."

Bimal turned back to the room. The man inside looked up to meet the inspector's eyes. Bimal mentally reassessed his opinion of the person.

"That is no ordinary foot soldier! Whoever you have in there is pretty high up the chain of command. One upside though," Vaibhav locked the barrel in position and upturned the artillery, "the handle is made of lacquered saal wood, retains residual oils from the skin for a hundred years."

Biraj and Bimal looked at each other sipping tea.

"Fingerprints!" Vaibhav clarified, "we can get this man's fingerprints from the rifle."

"And match it to what?" Bimal mocked, "all the criminal registers are kept at Siliguri!"

Vaibhav stood quietly, drumming his fingers on the rifle, for a few minutes.

"Ration cards!" said Vaibhav, "the campaigns were closed just two weeks ago in Naxalbari. There registers will have the fingerprints!"

"The campaigns miss a hundred people while ration registrations each year," Biraj tried his best not to sound discouraging, "he might not be in there!" Biraj pointed at the man inside.

"This village is at war! Trade is down for four years now. He is in there!"

Vaibhav walked away, not looking at the man inside. Biraj and Bimal stood alone in the room.

"Well, go and fetch him the registers!" Bimal snapped at Biraj.

Biraj and two constables dusted the file room to find the registers. By the time, he brought the bundle to the basement, Vaibhav had set up a variety of test tubes and boards on the desk. He was wearing mask and gloves. Biraj walked up to the desk and kept the files on the table. Vaibhav had taken out the papers from the ziplock bag and was soaking them in a tray full of washing alcohol.

Seeing Biraj, Vaibhav pulled a card from the other side. Black lines snaking through the middle in close clusters, forming seven partial fingerprints.

Vaibhav pulled a register and kept the card by it's side and started matching.

"What's this?" Biraj pointed at the papers dipped in alcohol.

"Trying to read those papers!" said Vaibhav as he went back to matching fingerprints.