The Curious Case That Solved Itself

By Aparna Tulpule

Crime detection is not just about finding clues and evidence but about interpreting them. What do you do when every clue has more than one plausible explanation?

• Language: English
• Publisher: Aparna Tulpule
• Release date: Jan 5, 2022
• ISBN: 9781393048411

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The Curious Case That Solved Itself

Aparna Tulpule

Copyright © 2019 Aparna Tulpule

All rights reserved.

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A man was half walking, half running along the busy road. He kept turning, pausing, waving to a rickshaw, a taxi, anything. He was at the same time fiddling with a mobile phone, trying to call somebody, muttering to himself, impatiently tapping the screen.

Traffic haemorrhaged along the arterial road in all shapes and sizes, from slim and swift motorcycles to human freighter public transport buses. It was 8:10 in the evening on a Thursday, the thick of the city’s rush hour.

Even among the hurrying crowds, the man’s distress was noticeable. A passing motorcyclist slowed down near him. As is typical in Mumbai, there was no need of pleasantries. The pedestrian named the area he wanted to go to, the biker nodded, the man hopped on and they were off.

Following the pillion rider’s pointing finger, the biker reached a high-end residential building. He dropped the man at the gate of the building and vroomed off on his way. He forgot all about it within minutes. Typical of this kind of a person, he never thought that he had been helpful or something. It was just perfectly normal behaviour to him.

The agitated man jumped off the bike almost before it stopped and rushed into the building. He tried to talk to the two security guards but was too incoherent and out of breath to be understood. He broke off mid-sentence and raced to the lift. At his floor, he had just taken a couple of steps when he was thrown back by an explosion.

*      *      *

The bomb went off at 8:15 on Thursday evening. The fire brigade reached the building first, at 8:20, and the police came soon after. Inspector Tawde and Constables Satpute and Gaitonde from the local police station were followed within minutes by ACP Patil of the crime detection unit of the crime branch.

Inspector Tawde’s body was his pride, and he sculpted it in the gym every day. His superior had once commented that crime detection was brain work, not literally heavy lifting. Tawde knew that, of course, and had the brains for the job. His no-nonsense, rough manner hid a sharp analytical mind. An investigating team stuck in a maze of clues had often found a breakthrough in Tawde’s seemingly off-hand comment that blasted away irrelevancies.

At the police station, Constables Satpute and Gaitonde were called Dhavalya and Pavalya, the popular names for farm bullocks in rural Maharashtra. Though the names were disparaging, the constables had adopted them with subaltern defiance. Most police officers were their social, economic and cultural superiors and sometimes the victims and suspects were too. The constables had a healthy scepticism about this supposed superiority. What they said to their superiors was mostly ‘yes, sir’; what they said among themselves was another matter.

ACP Patil was exempt from Dhavalya’s and Pavalya’s less than admiring view of their superiors. He was not just competent but treated fairly all police personnel down to the lowest ranks. He was never dismissive with constables and mentored juniors at every opportunity. But what really earned the respect of his subordinates was that Patil was not obsequious to his own superiors and spoke his mind when necessary. Maybe he had missed out on a promotion or two, but he was trusted and respected by colleagues and subordinates.

Patil and Tawde quickly went over the basics when they met at the site of the bombing. A bombing usually meant organised crime or terrorism, but small-time crooks could use bombs. The motives in bombings were usually not personal but political