Blood stains on Chennai roads – Part I

3 March, 2012

11:00 pm, Koot Road Junction, Medavakkam

    The street light at the corner of the street is flickering. There is no other source of light on the street except this.  He could hear the voice of someone, probably a drunkard, coming out of the darkness. His hands held on tightly to the steering of the jeep. He turns on the ignition and switches on the headlights and start racing towards the drunkard. The drunkard, at once, couldn’t see anything in that light coming towards him. A minute later, the tires of the jeep imprints a path of blood stains on the road.

4^th March, 2012

9:45 am, EB-5, TCS, Siruseri

  Karthik, an orphan, is busy in fixing up a bug in his code. Suddenly, his mobile started to vibrate. “Unknown number” flashes on the screen. He picks up the call. There is a sweet and husky voice on the other side. She is a call center girl offering some discount on a banking product. Even though he would normally disconnect such calls, he was amazed by her voice and started listening to her. He disconnects the call ten minutes later after fixing up an appointment with her at 6:30 pm.

12:30 pm, Govt hospital, Chennai Central

The doctor comes out of the mortuary and goes straight into his cabin. He takes out a pad containing some papers clipped to it. He starts to scribble something on them. After 10 minutes of more scribbling, he calls the compounder and asks him to handover the papers to the police personnel at the reception desk.

2:00 pm, Habibullah Road, T-Nagar

 Sankar just walks into the Maruti Insurance Agency. He is welcomed by a man, in formal attire, with a French beard.  They both go into the conference room and come out after an hour. Sankar then goes to the deposit counter and fills up a form. He goes back to French beard guy for the form verification. After, five minutes, he deposits two sets each about forty notes of hundred rupees denominations along with the incomplete form. He then shakes his hands with the French beard guy and leaves the place with a big smile on his face.

2:40 pm, Govt hospital, Chennai Central

   The family members of the body in the mortuary collect it by paying a bribe of two hundred fifty rupees to the ward boy. The body is shifted into the rented Omni van, used as an ambulance.

6:25 pm, CCD, Adyar

 Karthik sits at one corner of the CCD with a cappuccino. He looks at his watch and then at the entrance. Two minutes later, a girl dressed in tight formal outfit walks in. He takes her mobile out and dials a number from her recent call history. Karthik raises his hand and cuts the incoming call that sets the mobile back into the silent mode. She puts her mobile back into her handbag and approaches Karthik. The conversation that started with pleasantries lasted for an hour. She hands over a chit before she leaves. Karthik opens the chit after she left and finds “Maruti Insurance Agency, Habibullah Road, T Nagar” .  He was completely swept off the floor by her beauty.

5^th March, 2012

10:00 am, Habibullah Road, T-Nagar

 Karthik meets a French beard guy working in Maruti Insurance Agency. They both go into the conference room and come out after an hour. He submits a few forms and a cheque at the deposit counter. Karthik shakes his hands with the French beard guy and leaves the place with a big smile on his face.

3:05 pm, LIC building, Anna Salai

A young man in his mid-twenties stands in a long queue at the counter. He waits there in the counter for ten more minutes before his turn comes. He submits a set of papers pinned together. The man at the counter verifies the documents and hands over a cheque of 15 lakh rupees in the name of M. Ragavendra Varma.

8:00 pm, Habibullah Road, T-Nagar

The jeep with the blood stains on its front wheels is parked in front of Maruti Insurance Agency. The guy with a cap on his head comes out of the office with a file. He gets into the jeep and opens the file. It contained the list of names, their contact, office, and residence details. He goes through each and every line in the document which is of about 5 pages. The last page of the document contains names Sankar and Karthik.  He turns on the ignition and drives the jeep towards Vani Mahal.

After 3 months…

A column titled “Two people dead in hit and run over case at Tambaram and Perungudi” is printed in the Chennai section of The Hindu. Below the title of the column have the photos of Sankar and Karthik.

To be continued…

P.S. This is the first time I wrote something of this sort, a thriller story (I presume). If you have anything to say, please let me know 🙂