Chapter 15
Day 3 of Karan’s arrest
Kevin managed to get Karan and himself in the same room. He requested the officer incharge to wait outside to which, surprisingly, the officer complied with.
“Hi. I’m Kevin Lomax. I’m gonna be your lawyer.”
If there was any sign of hope on Karan’s face, it vanished. “I know who you are.”
“Good. And THAT’s why I’m gonna help you.”
“Or you would lose the case and finally John would be available for you.”
“If you know John well, you know that that’s not how it works with him. Anyways, even if you were out of the picture, John would never come to me. We’re history.”
“Do you honestly believe that?”
Kevin wanted to say no, but instead he paused and said, “I’m your last bet Karan. Deal with it.”
Karan smiled but it wasn’t a happy one. “So how do we go from here?”
“First, you will tellme everything.”
Karan narrated everything that happened that day. How he got to office as usual and everything seemed normal. Just before the explosion, he had to go to a neighbour booth to get the credit card machine they borrowed. While he was talking to one of them, he heard a loud sound. Before he realized what had happened, the display board and the pillar supporting it fell on him. He was hurt a bit, but had it not been for that pillar, the explosion would have got to him and probably killed him. When he tried looking around, he saw the man he was talking to lying dead a couple of feet away. The bomb shreds had marred his face.
“As per the Police report, the center of the explosion was somewhere around your work area. Do you remember seeing someone suspicious that day?”
“No.”
“What about the phone calls? The Police said they found multiple calls from your mobile toMiddle Eastern countries. What do you know about those?”
“Middle East? I didn’t call anyone there! My family is in India and I call them often”
“What about the people you work with?”
“There are some but I’m not sure if they are alive.”
Kevin pulled out a pen and a pad. “Write their full names down and their phone numbers if you remember. I’ll try and locate them.”
Kevin spent the day trying to locate the people on the list. As he had feared, none of them survived the blast. Apparently, getting away from the booth at the right time had saved Karan. However, that fact alone made him look suspicious weakening his already weak case.
Kevin tried hard to pull out the details of evidence found on the crime scene from the Police who weren’t forthcoming with the details.
“It seems that they don’t wanna waste their time trying to find someone else!” Kevin complained to Jeffrey over the phone. “They look at me as if I’m gonna spoil their peace.”
Day 1 of the hearing
The Court room was bustling with activity. There were reporters and families of victims. John had never seen so many sad and angry people at once and all of them were staring at Karan who was now sitting in the witness box. The prosecutor had begun his opening remarks after which Kevin would be allowed to speak. Karan looked like he had lost 5 years of his age in just 4 days. John hadn’t met him because the Police refused to permit him and the one chance they had got, Kevin wanted to speak to him. Karan looked at John and John smiled. He tried telling him everything would be ok. But it did not lift Karan’s spirits.
