And He Wanted Me Dead

By Jasper

And He Wanted Me Dead….is an intriguing crime and suspense thriller, wherein inspector Raj is an honest, hardened and hardworking cop. His dedication toward his profession and duty is outstanding….his career record unblemished….until now!

His entire reputation is at stake when he is called in to investigate an accident. What looks like a road accident….is it really a mere accident or is there something more ghastly to it? The more the inspector digs deeper to unravel the truth, the more flummoxed he becomes. Even though his investigation is impeccable yet his frustrations rise sky high as it heads nowhere but straight into dead ends every time he thinks he has a solid lead. His personal life is already in shambles and now his professional life is also crumbling right in front of his eyes because of this case and a series of other killings which occur in his jurisdiction.

Will he be able to solve these mysteries? Will he be able to apprehend the perpetrators and bring them to justice? Will he be able to keep his reputation of a brilliant investigating officer intact?

Discover the answers to all these queries in this fast paced crime thriller. A story of loyalty, friendship and deception….

• Language: English
• Publisher: Notion Press
• Release date: Sep 9, 2014
• ISBN: 9789384391201

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1. The Deadly Highway

9th July 2010; 10.30am

It was a scorching and humid day. The much awaited rains were evasive for the last one week now. New Delhi was reeling under God’s wrath, it seemed. Inspector Raj was restlessly shifting in his seat as he was drowned in a huge heap of files. He had been in the police force for the last twenty years now and was very dedicated to his job. He firmly believed in the oath of service to mankind he had taken at the police academy, before he got commissioned. Although, there were occasions when he had to buckle down under the pressure of his seniors but he always felt very awkward and uncomfortable whenever he had to accommodate them. He mostly tried to stick to his conscience as he wanted to be at peace with himself.

As he tried hard to concentrate on the file in front of him, under the dim light of the lone tube light in his morosely dark chamber, he could not conceal his irritation when his cell phone suddenly screamed out aloud, jolting the entire chamber’s eerie silence. One look at the display of the cell phone was enough for him to know that it was another call of the duty, the second one that hot and humid day, making it all the more exhaustive for a man in his mid-fifties. A shrieking voice informed him that there had been an accident near the jungles off the National Highway No. 1, near Alipur and that the victim was dead.

Inspector Raj was dusky, handsome and a well-built man who was around six feet and two inches tall. He was a self-imposed bachelor, who in his heydays was in love with a woman who was very beautiful but could never muster enough courage to express his love to her. Soon he got to know that his younger brother was also in love with that very woman and both of them wanted to get married but could not as they belonged to different religions, which is still a taboo in India. The inspector magnanimously got the two married and consequently both the brothers were ostracized by their family. The inspector, being obstinate by nature never returned to his family ever after that. His brother and sister-in-law later died in a tragic car crash leaving behind a daughter – Sunaina, who was then adopted and brought up by the inspector. He raised her as her own, all by himself and loved her immensely. To provide her with unconditional love he vowed never ever to get married himself. He had made a lot of enemies within and outside the police force due to his obstinacy and honesty, thus he was forced to keep Sunaina away from him in a hostel in Dehradun, lest his adversaries harm her in any way. For the same reason, he had kept his relation with her a closely guarded secret, till the time she was to get married.

Sunaina was married off to a wealthy businessman. She was now settled in Dubai. He had deliberately chosen a groom for her who was settled abroad since he wanted her to stay away from him and the perils that surrounded him because of his profession. Though, Sunaina wanted inspector Raj to take voluntary retirement and live with her in Dubai but he would not agree as he loved his job a lot. He had grown to love his job as that was the only solace he had in his terribly self-imposed lonely life. Had it not been for Sunaina and his job, he would have probably committed suicide but then slowly he started getting his peace by taking care of his daughter and by honestly solving the cases that came by his way.

The inspector was a part of the elite Crime Branch Unit of the Delhi Police, thus he was surprised to get this call as they said it was an accident. However, later after enquiring he understood as to why they had called him. The patrolling party who had reached the scene first had suspected it to be more than just a mere accident; therefore it was prudent to have an expert’s opinion to reach to the logical conclusion.

It was reported that a car had burnt down, consuming the poor driver along with it. Must be one of those drunkards driving crazy on top of a CNG (Compressed Natural Gas) or an LPG (Liquefied Petroleum Gas) fuel tank, loudly exclaimed Inspector Raj as he gathered a posse of policemen under his charge and got into the official jeep to reach the site of the accident. It took them almost forty-five minutes to reach the spot. Almost two third of the sedan was consumed by the furious flames. It seemed as if the accident took place the previous night and was not discovered until the next morning, simply because the spot was a very secluded patch of the road and was seldom used, even though being right off the highway. It was a bunch of rag pickers who had first noticed the car and informed the owner of one of the very few kiosks available there, who in turn had called the police control room. As inspector Raj alighted from his jeep, he saw the local villagers, who might have got wind of the accident, already swarming the place. The local police constables were making unsuccessful attempts to keep the crowd at bay.

As he reached the spot his nostrils were greeted by the stench of burnt flesh, nauseating to a normal person but not to a hardened hand like him. He sighed in disbelief at the number of people gathered around as if witnessing a spectacle. He felt sick to see people marvel at such a tragic death of a fellow human, instead of letting the dead be, the crowd seemed to extract a cheap thrill. Respect for anything and everything has gone down the drain, he thought. The sight of the maddening crowd got him so infuriated that he ordered a charge against the crowd to break them up and to get the site cleared for the investigators.

As soon as the crowd was broken up and the site cleared for inspection, inspector Raj moved toward the car. The front seating section of the car was completely burnt; the plastic parts had melted down beyond recognizable shape. On the driver’s seat lay the deceased, now reduced to a charred greyish-black skeleton. Barring some flesh still clinging on loyally here and there, not much was left of the poor soul. The calf muscles were somehow slightly intact on the right foot. The shoes on the skeleton clearly indicated that it was a male who had lost his life so painfully. The inspector looked closely and saw a charred watch strung around the bones at the wrist of the deceased, it looked like an expensive one, maybe a Rolex and he also found the remains of a cell phone. The door of the car was jammed due to the expansion caused by the immense heat created by the fire. On close scrutiny, he observed that the car was not operating either on CNG or LPG as what he had suspected initially. It has got to be a wiring short circuit, declared one of the policemen on the site. Ignoring the comment, inspector Raj started the routine inspection of the area. Unlike most of his other colleagues who would not miss an opportunity to just let things be so as to make life easier for themselves, they would just close a case as fast as possible even if it meant to cover up certain facts in the most injudicious manner, inspector Raj liked to get to the bottom of things to unravel the truth. He took pride in the fact that God had blessed him with such a divine job so as to bring the truth to the fore and to get justice to the destitute, downtrodden and the dead.

He could not explain why, but he had a strong hunch that the patrolling party might be right and that this was more than an accident. Experience had taught him not to take anything at its face value, to dig deeper and deeper was his second nature. One thing which the inspector noticed was that there were no traces of any skid marks; even the plantation in the jungle around the car bore no such violent marks that could be suggestive of an accident having taken place there. The place looked as if the car entered quite peacefully and burnt itself down. It was pretty evident to the inspector by now that it could not have been an accident, a case of suicide perhaps, but then he had not come across any suicide case in his entire career till date where someone had chosen such a painful way to go. Murder.....Yes! That was what was spelt all over the remains of the poor departed one.

Call for the forensics and cordon off the entire bloody area. Keep these stupid urchins away, lest we lose more evidence ‘coz of these arses, screamed inspector Raj instinctively to his sub-ordinates, who scrambled to follow his instructions. The inspector knew that the rampage caused by the villagers at the site had already done a lot of damage to the evidence, but hoped that they get enough to nail the son of a bitch who had committed such a ghastly

Reviews for And He Wanted Me Dead

[jazalx · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

I got this book from a friend while I was in India. Started reading on the plane. Could not stop. Finished it in one straight sitting. Wonderful plot. Great story. What suspense. A must read for every crime thriller lover.