The Poetry of Deaths

Chapter 13

"Prateek? Yeh kaun hai?"Sana asks.
Sidharth wipes his face and sits down on the bed. "A hacker, an amateur one."
"If he isn't the killer then why did he try to finish his job of killing Ashutosh?"

Sidharth smiles, "That's really interesting. Judge, our psychopath, poet, and hacker killer has quite a presence on the dark web. Judge has created a name for himself in that world. He is nearly worshipped by plenty of foolish people all around the world including people like Prateek who call themselves his fan. So he did his nasty work to earn accolades from his idol and his fellow friends."

Sana lies down on his chest, "Yani, Judge ne istemal kiya hai Prateek ka."
"Yes. Judge had posted a riddle on the web and thrown a challenge to his followers. Yes, he has a good number there. The one who could solve the riddle was supposed to get a reward. Prateek successfully decoded it and as a reward he got the chance to finish his unfinished job. And that would have got him a much bigger reward."

Sana gets shocked on hearing, "What was the bigger reward? Money?"
"Along with fame in their community a big amount of Bitcoins. And the actual prize along with them was the position. The winner was supposed to be the right hand man of the Judge. It is a matter of prestige in that world."

"Tumhe yeh sab kaise pata chala? Did you know from the start about these things?"
"No. I learned about these later from an IT guy, .. he is good."
Sana lifts her head, "You had no idea that Prateek wasn't the real killer, didn't you?"

Sidharth smiles mischievously, "Well, I had my doubts, thanks to you."
She stares at him, "Me? What did I do?"
"Your dream, two pairs of feet. That was something that created a suspicion. Then when I saw him, my doubts were clear."

Sana sits up, "Detail mein batao. I am not getting anything."
"The killer, the Judge, is a serial killer. They follow a particular pattern to kill their victims. The Judge used to inject the victims and kill them. He never came close enough to his victims so that their feet will be facing each other like you mentioned. That wasn't the case here. He was standing just the way you saw. And instead of killing the victims by causing heart attacks, the killer was drowning Ashutosh. Fine, for a moment, I may think that as this was the second attempt so, he might think of a different way. But one thing that was totally different was the lights. Whenever the Judge killed anyone, he never showed his face to his victims. But Pratik did. A serial, psychopath killer won't change his pattern that much. I knew then and there that he wasn't the person we are really looking for."

"Wow! But then why was he ready to accept the crime?" She asks him.
"Like I said, people are fools. Judge ne usse contact kiya after he had solved the riddle. He assigned the job on the condition that if he gets arrested, he will not speak a word about him. Prateek has admiration and huge respect for the Judge. He went ahead and promised him that he would accept that he is the Judge. He wanted like I said earlier accolades and the Judge could get away with all the murders."

She says, "Hmm.. how foolish! Idiot!"
"Thank you by the way. Your inputs, your dreams helped me again to save a life. Otherwise Ashutosh wouldn't have been lucky the second time. And you wouldn't have remained the ACP's wife."

She, confused, asks, "Why?"
"I was going to resign. So.. thank you wifey."
He wraps his arms around her and gives a kiss on her cheek.
"What? But why?"
Sidharth told her everything.
"My reputation was at stake. A killer threw me a challenge on national television. I would have resigned if I had failed to save Ashutosh."

"Seriously, you took the risk of saying such a thing. But I knew you would save him. Toh koi risk tha bhi nahi. Did you find anything else on this Judge?"
Sidharth nods, "Yes. He had contacted all his victims in some way or the other. He had given them information on the sites and convinced them to visit those places alone. And his choice of places where he would murder them were chosen carefully too."