Trojan horse
He ducked from the right hand hook of the dark bearded fellow; he jumped high and delivered a well timed flying kick with his right foot on the chest of the dark fellow. There was a big roar from the spectator when his opponent could not get up on the count of ten. Ajit was breathing heavy; he went out of the fighting arena and slumped on a chair. He felt a touch on his shoulder. He looked up and found a fashionable middle aged lady looking longingly at him. Ajit ignored the lady, he was not a gigolo. The wound on his face started bleeding, someone put antiseptic bandage on the wound. The first aid kits were kept handy for such wounds, for serious injury the combatants were rushed to a private nursing home. It was already late in the night. He knew that he will get the usual tongue lashing from his father.
Supriyo was a businessman; he was supplier of civil construction material for leading contractors of Calcutta. He was a widower with two sons. Ajit was the eldest at twenty five years and the younger one was Bimal. Bimal was 19 years old and was in a reputed college. He was some kind of nerd, introvert and always found on his computer. He had hardly any friends but was brilliant in his studies.
After his wife’s death Supriyo was not keeping well. He wanted Ajit to share his workload, but Ajit was an outdoor type of young man. He lived a fast life, a good sportsman. He was dating so many girls simultaneously. He was a kind of Casanova of South Calcutta. He would zip around in his motor bike, there will always be a girl pillion riding.
Bimal was on his computer, he was chatting with a girl in Bombay. While chatting he used pseudo name. He was Hercules for the virtual world.
He heard the sound of the motor bike when it entered their housing complex and waited for his father’s curse.
“Here comes the prince of Calcutta. Bloody hell, living in my house and sucking my blood like a leech.” His arthritis was giving trouble again; he was not able to get up from his bed.
Ajit had become immune to this harangue of his father. He noisily entered the house and straight away went to his room. After changing his bloodied cloth he dived to his bed.
Bimal could hear the healthy snore of his elder brother after a few minutes. He was an insomniac; his usual time to go to sleep was after twelve in the night till then he would be net surfing.
The above scene pretty much sums up the going on in the household of Mitras.
A sick businessman father was looking forward for his eldest son to help him in his business so that he could retire and the second son a brilliant student and a computer geek yet to complete his studies.
Ajit was always good in sports, he was a good athlete and a gymnast, and he was black belt in judo. He was a drifter and could not stick to any job.
There was a servant named Bhanu in the house, for cooking and care taking. A maid servant used to come for cleaning.
Supriyo had a number of suppliers in his role who would source sand, brick, chips etc from nearby villages. He was a bad paymaster and often those small traders would come to the house and a raise raucous about their payment. He had a number of competitors also as this real state business was booming in Calcutta with so many housing complexes coming up, these suppliers were undercutting each other.
It was a Sunday. Bimal could hear his father shouting on the phone, “No I am not joining your group to form cartel. “
“Don’t threaten me.” He slammed the phone back on the cradle.
Bhanu was with the family for more than twenty years. He was like one of the family. He too heard the argument and was worried about Supriyo’s failing health.
By the time he served him breakfast there was the sound of the calling bell. Bhanu went to the door via the drawing room. It was three bed roomed flat with a spacious drawing room, a dinning room and two bathrooms. There was a common servant’s area in the complex where Bhanu slept.
“Babu, Malakar has come.”
Malakar was one of those petty suppliers. Supriyo cursed, “These idiots will not allow me to live in peace even on a Sunday.”
“Ask the bugger to wait.” Supriyo said fumingly.
Bimal could hear all the exchanges from his bed. He was late riser on Sundays. He knew that the bigger drama was yet to start as Ajit had not returned the previous night. He could hear his father restless throughout the night.
It was about ten in the morning when Ajit returned and the usual outburst of his father was there. Ajit shouted back to his father, “Old man don’t shout like that at me. You will get heart attack and all your properties would come to me and to your loving son Bimal.”
“I will disinherit you. You scum,” his father shouted back.
The whole of Sunday wore a look of grave yard in Mitra house; no one was talking to any one.
There was hardly in peace in the house. The week passed off.
As usual Malakr came on next Sunday but a bit early. He found the door open. He pressed the bell no one answered. Bhanu was still in servant’s quarter.
When Bhanu came to the flat he found the door open, some one has tampered the mortice lock of the front door. He found that no one was awake yet. He went to Supriyo’ room and found him lying on the bed and blood oozing out of his slit throat, there were signs of struggle. Bhanu gave out a big scream. Both Ajit and Bimal woke up and rushed to their father’s bed room. Ajit felt for his pulse, the beat was not there.
When police came they found three of them grief stricken. Nothing was stolen from the house.
The body was sent for post mortem and police detectives looked for clues in the room.
Malakar was arrested for murder. After two days Malakar released on bail as the postmortem report revealed that the murder was committed some times in the night.
The police were also investigating the competitors when Bhanu told about the telephone conversation of the previous Sunday.
A murder is always a messy thing. While cross examining the brothers it was revealed that the previous night there was a big argument between Ajit and Supriyo. The police found a blood soaked T shirt in Ajit’s cupboard. The shirt was sent to the forensic laboratory. They found matching blood of Supriyo on Ajit’s T shirt. Ajit was arrested for the murder of his father.The murder weapon was not found.
The police investigation revealed Ajit to be unemployed and was living a high roller life. It was concluded that the money was the motive of the murder though Ajit vehemently protested and claimed to be innocent.
Suchitra, niece of samaranand an ameature private investigator, was not charmed by Ajit but her friend Simi was.
Samaranand had just returned from the club after playing his usual nine holes with Inder. He was preparing to go to the office when Suchitra came with Simi. Samaranand had met Simi many times and knew her well.
“Kaku you must save Ajit,” Simi pleaded.
“Hold on, let me get settled. Come have a seat,” he invited both of them.
“Gopal, bring tea and some snacks for these young ladies,” he called out to his servant.
Samaranand was aware of the case from the news papers. To him it looked like an open and shut case.
Simi did not touch the snacks, she was agitated, “Ajit can not commit murder. He is tough out side but a delicate person in reality. I run a nursery for destitute street dogs and he helps me in running it.”
“Uncle if you wish you can talk to his friends. I can call them here.”
Samaranand agreed to look into the case and also her suggestion of meeting the friends.
He had a detail discussion with Ajit’s friends and found all of them had one common opinion about Ajit and that was “He is a compassionate person.”
They were all intrigued by his mysterious absence in the night and his source of money.
Samaranand visited Ajit in jail to find out more about his personal life.
Ajit admitted to be rude with his father at times. He refused to divulge his nocturnal activity, Samaranand was baffled.
Simi was a regular visitor of Mitra house so she arranged his visit to the Mitra house.
Bimal had gone to the college and Bhanu, the sevant was in the house.
He went to Ajit’s room. There were posters of Van Damn, Bruce Lee, and Sylvester Stallone on his walls. The cupboard was full of sports apparel. He was surprised to find books of Poelo Coelho.
Then he entered Bimal’s room. It was an orderly room. The book rack was full. His computer was on line. Samaranad sat in front of the computer and looked at various files. He was amazed. He himself was not so expert on computer but knew that all the files were masked and required passwords. He wished that Tikoo would have been there to handle the computer. He was surprised to find some oversized T shirts in the cupboard of Bimal. There were dumbbells below his bed.
Samaranand was disturbed as he could not find anything to help Ajit. He decided to interview Ajit again about his night activity. Possibly one of his nocturnal buddies might have committed the crime. He was not ruling out the angle of one of the rivals committing the murder. The real state related crime was on the rise in Calcutta. He felt the absence of his fifteen years old nephew Tikoo badly, Tikoo was his assistant for such investigations, as he had gone out for a school expedition. He was expected back the next day.
Tikoo was thrilled when he came to know that Samaranand was missing him in a case. On his return from expedition he immediately rushed to Samaranand’s flat.
In a business like manner Tikoo was given the task to find out more about Bimal.
Samaranand went to meet Ajit at the jail.
With great reluctance Ajit relented to talk about his night activity.
It emerged that in the night he used to take part in free for all fight in an underground garage of a rich guy. There would be heavy betting. The crowd consisted of rich guys and ladies who had money to splurge and liked the bloody gore. They were there for thrill and he for money. That was the reason why he quite often came late at night. The night before the murder of his father he had no fight scheduled so there was no question of him leaving a bloody T shirt. The problem in this alibi is that the fight was illegal so no one will come forward to vouch for such fight. So his source of earning would remain a dubious one for the police. However Samaranand was convinced about his innocence.
“Bimal has no friend in his locality. I tracked a friend from his school who is known to my friend’s elder brother. In the school he was a loner and selfish. He is in an Orkut group. I hope you know that Orkut is an internet site created by Googles for Social networking. It is named Orkut after its creators name Orkut Buyukokoten. In these groups one can become member only by invitation. He likes chatting in the net. He has boasted to some of the guys that he is like a Hercules in the virtual world,” Tikoo informed.
Tikoo was himself a computer geek and that was the reason of his becoming assistant to Samaranand in his adventures.
With Tikoo Samaranand paid a visit to Mitra flat in the noon time. Bimal was out in college. Tikoo sat in front of the computer and broke the code, as per Tikoo it was a simple code as Bimal has used his name in reverse LAMIB as the password. Tikoo started working furiously on the key board; there was a sublime smile on his face.
Samaranand in the meanwhile enquired more about the threatening call from Bhanu. Bhanu informed that it was Supriyo who actually wanted other contractors to go bust. So that lead of rival’s committing the murder went cold.
Both Samaranand and Tikoo came out of that South Calcutta flat in Southern Avenue and hailed a cab for Golf Green.
Tikoo straight away went to the computer in Samaranad’s flat and logged on. He was busy net surfing and phoning some one.
Samaranand asked Gopal to bring tea. He sat in his favourite rocking chair closed his eyes and started playing the findings of the murder in his mind.He arranged those informations so far collected in an orderly manner in his mind.
Ajit used to fight illegal fights for earning money.
Ajit was a compassionate person.
Ajit was liked by all his friends.
Supriyo was not happy with Ajit.
Bimal had no friend.
Bimal was selfish.
Supriyo loved Bimal.
Supriyo was a greedy man.
Supriyo had many enemies because he wanted to corner the business.
One thing was clearly emerging that there was no love in that Mitra house.
There was ring of his land phone and heard Tikoo was talking .
Tikoo left for his house after a few hours.
Next day morning a breathless Tikoo came to Samaranand's flat , requested him to go to the central park of Golf Green with him.
After about half an hour both of them left for central park. As per Tikoo’s direction Samaranand sat on a bench and Tikoo went out of the gate. Samaranad was surprised to see Tikoo entering the park with a spectacled teen and both with cold drinks in hand. Then suddenly Tikoo slumped on the ground and the stranger ran out. Samaranand without wasting any time rushed to Tikoo and realized that he was poisoned. He rushed Tikoo to the hospital where his stomach was pumped to extract the poison. In the meanwhile that teenager had vanished.
Next day Tikoo was moved out of the ICU to the general ward, his worried parents were there. Samaranand started feeling guilty about the whole affair. It was he who involved Tikoo in this game. Tikoo’s eyes were closed. Samaranad placed his hand lovingly on his forehead. Tikoo immediately opened his eyes and said, “Kaku you must report to police that Bimal is the real culprit not Ajit.”
“I am proud of you Tikoo. Don’t worry he is already under interrogation by police. First tell me why did he come for you?”
“From his computer I could find out about his Orkut membership. Then I used ID of one of my friends who is member in the same circle. There I logged on and declared that I know one of us is a murderer of father, I had this hunch of him being the real culprit so I provoked him in his Orkut group. During the chat I started giving out some details of Mitra’s locality of Southern Avenue. The bait was taken and some one calling himself Hercules wanted to know more from me in person. Then I gave my cell number ,I did not want to give him my land number otherwise he would have tracked my address from the Calcutta Telephones web page. Bimal contacted me and I fixed up central park for rendezvous. I never bargained that he will be daring enough to murder me there in the broad day light. He came on his brother’s bike. We started talking and then he suggested that we take some soft drink. Rest you have seen.”
“I guess he was already carrying a coke bottle laced with poison and must have asked that vendor to keep that for him. So when both of you went there he gave you the bottle which was laced with poison. In my crude way I was convinced that he committed the murder as Bhanu told me that though Bimal was brilliant but he was jealous of his elder brother because he was a kind of debonair rascal whom every one liked. The dumbbell below his bed shows that in addition to his brain he was after brawn. I think he put on Ajits T shirt in the night and slit his father"s throat while he was asleep. The blood was spewed on the T shirt which he put back in Ajit’s cupboard and then coolly went to sleep. He was sure that no one will ever doubt him as he was so meek and studious .He was fed up with his father’s stingy ways and was jealous of Ajit from the core of his heart, Ajit's popularity and debonair way of life made him feel inferior. Thus he wanted to eliminate both by his diabolical plan and inherit the property. Tampering the mortice lock of the outer door was a red herring, it was made to appear as though someone from outside might have come. He is a psychological pervert,” was the summing up of Samaranand.
Ajit was released; both Simi and Ajit came with sweets in Samaranand’s flat. Tikoo was called and was presented a lap top by Simi for his daring act and which actually helped in nabbing Bimal red handed. Ajit was sad for his brother and decide to engage a renowned lawyer to fight Bimal’s case.
Later on when Samaranand and Tikoo were discussing the case then Tikoo commented, " Remember you told me the story of Illiad."
"Yes, about the ten years war between the Greek and the Trojans."
" There you told me that the Greek built a big wooden horse and some soldiers hid in that hollow horse. It was left at the gate of the Trojans and the Greek pretended to leave by ship. The Trojan's were told by one of the Greek soldiers who was left behind that the horse was a gift to queen Athena. The Trojans dragged the horse inside their fort. Thus the Greek soldiers hiding inside the horse could get inside their fort and win the war."
Samaranad sighed and said , "Yes I remeber and I know you are trying to tell me that Bimal is like a Trojan horse."
" In a way yes, also I want to tell you that there is a computer virus known as Trojan which sits quietly in the computer and destroys the softwares loaded in that computer. So our friend Bimal was like that computer virus in Mitra house."
Note;When this story was written in 2005 then the social network Orku was live and throbbing. Now it has been closed down.
