For head constable Vignesh, today couldn’t have been better. Another chain snatching incident in the 'cultured' locality of Nanganallur had made him face the ire of the Brahmins and their society going by the name of some welfare society, who were hell bent on making the local police aware of their mistakes. Now after fending off their attacks he’d to deal with the local press that had appeared out of nowhere.
“Ah move them away……ah away from this place tell them this is a crime scene, now. “, he told his juniors as he took out his buzzing phone and lifting it to get a good look at the caller ID, frowned in exasperation as he recognized it. It was his wife, who’d now start nagging at him for some godforsaken reason. Obligingly he took the call.
“Hmm tell… . Arre if you call in my phone I’ll only take na… . enna di.. now tell me what've you called me for? What? Poriyal? Why? Don’t you have enough, from yesterday? Finished? Ok so what do I… what, now? I’m in the middle of a case..”, he waited for a while listening to his wife’s reply and on hearing it, frowned “…..What do you mean by that?”, there was a small pause as he waited for his wife’s reply and while he waited he glanced at the woman sitting by the side of the road. It was the victim, whose chain was snatched. She looked bewildered and scared, appearing to be quite breathless. She must’ve been around 40 and looked as if from a well off family. He motioned to a nearby constable to give her water and continued talking on the phone. The constable after giving her a bottle of water, came near him and waited, watching with amusement as his superior talked on the phone.
“No, no. No way at all. I can’t today. Look this is a very serious case… Yes it’s very serious, the woman’s throat has been cut and all her valuables stolen… You only asked me a.. Ah okay, okay cut the call, I’ll talk… huh?? “, Vignesh looked disbelievingly at the phone and saw his junior hiding his laughter.
“Oh! Enjoying yourself I see, get to work you useless fellow! “, he yelled at which the constable scampered off. Vignesh's phone rang again, this time it was the inspector. He quickly attended the call,
“Good morning sir.”
“Morning. Where are you now?”, the inspector sounded gruff, most probably in a bad mood. Not a good thing, thought Vignesh.
“Sir, I’m at the crime scene, sir”
“What crime scene, where?”
“Sir in Nanganallur, sir. Near the Anjaneyar Driving school. It’s another chain snatching, sir”
“Hmm we’ll see about that later. Any input on that CCTV footage from the road in Adambakkam?”, Vignesh hesitated now and the inspector understood.
“Don’t tell me you didn’t check it”
“Sir, I was going to………”
“God dammit, what’s wrong with you? Why didn’t you do it?”
“Sir I was about to, but then Vinod sir stopped me from doing it and told me to concentrate on other cases instead.”, Vignesh closed his eyes, expectantly waiting for another outburst instead he got silence.
“Vinod told you that, huh? Vinod?”
“Yes sir.”
“Great, just great. Ok you come near the driving school and wait, I’ll pick you up.” saying so the inspector cut the call. Today I’m definitely getting fired, Vignesh said to himself, as he walked towards the school.