Chapter 22

26th December 2019

Paul's POV:

After a tiresome journey of whole ten hours to Kanyakumari, we followed the google map to reach the village called Marthandam. But google map didn't help us with the directions to Joshua street. So we stopped here and there to ask directions to a few villagers who were standing by the road.

I had made few phone calls to Mathews and Renita to know if they heard from Noel but there seems to be no improvement. Mathews confirmed that Noel has been missing for twelve solid hours now.

One more shocking news that he had fed me was Noel's car was found parked in his apartment parking area. A team has checked his flat too. The security system of the apartment seems to be pathetic. There were no proper cameras installed around or inside the building and the watchman doesn't take note of the vehicles that enter or exit the apartment. Neither did he know when Noel's car was parked there or who did it. Did the kidnapper park his car there before taking him?

Now that we had Victor's car number too another team has been checking whether the car has entered or left Coimbatore when Noel went missing. But the answer we are getting so far was a no. Maybe he used a different vehicle now.

Some villagers helped us reach Joshua street finally. After entering the street we stopped the jeep at one side of the road and hopped out of it. We walked to a small tea shop where a bunch of old men was seated in a circular group, chatting and enjoying a good warm glass of tea.

We were five in number and were also in mufti so no one got alarmed after seeing us. As we neared them their attention turned to us.

"We are from the Coimbatore department of police. We are here regarding a kidnap case. Can you tell us where this house is?"

One of the old men took the sheet from me and squinted his eyes to read them as another one beside him snatched the paper from him and read it aloud.

"Victor Anand?", he said scrunching up his nose. "There is no one called Victor Anand here", he said looking around at his acquaintances.

Suddenly another old man's face brightened, "Buddy, its the son of Vijay Anand! That drunkard!" Instantly everyone's face lit up as they chorussed saying they all knew him.

"Where is his house?", I repeated my question.

"Why do you want to go to his house? There is no one there", a guy in his late fifties said taking a sip from his steaming glass of tea.

"What? Why?", I asked baffled.

"Around twenty years back there was a fire accident in that house. Even the neighbors were in that house when the accident happened and the two families died in that fire", the guy explained.

"No no! Vijay and Victor escaped the fire. Others died. The kid was only five or six by the time", another one said.

"It was not an accident, first of all, it would have been one of Vijay's tricks to kill everyone in that house. Poor neighbors died along! That guy was a psycho", the old man who first got the address sheet from me said.

It now became more of a chatter between themselves.

"Do any of you know where Vijay and Victor are now?", I asked getting back their attention, badly wanting a yes.

They thought for a while before one of them spoke up, "Everyone started doubting Vijay for the accident and so he fled the village with his son. I heard that he then moved to Tirunelvi. Someone told that they saw him themselves but I am not sure"

I nodded. "What do you people know about him? About him and his son?", I asked carefully studying their faces.

"He is a drunkard and very abusive though a very rich family they were. He tortured both his wife and son. He was also a womanizer. Though he had a very beautiful wife he went after the other ladies in the village, senseless brat!", the guy said.

"Yeah, I still remember his wife. Such a beautiful woman. She had honey-colored eyes and even the kid had the same", another one added as everyone around nodded in agreement.

"Anything else?", I asked getting back the piece of paper from them.

"No, just that", they said as the guy asked "Did you say it was a kidnap case? Who was kidnapped?"

"A twenty-one-year-old medical student", I said.

"Male or female?", the youngest in the group asked squinting his eyes.

"Female", I said.

"The highly possible! Vijay would get turned on even if you write a woman's name in a piece of paper and give him", he commented as the others burst into laughter passing high-fives to each other. Was it that funny?

"Can you just tell me where their house is?", I asked ignoring his lame joke.

"The second last house in the left row", he said as I thanked them before we headed to the house with great disappointment. The house was large and stood out from all the other houses in the street by size and its unique elevation. It was dark and destructed from the fire with ivy plants creeping all over its walls. I ordered the other four men to search the house thoroughly and hand me if they got anything important. I walked up to the front door and sat on the last step as the other four hurried in.

I lighted a cigarette and sat gazing at the sky, smoking my restlessness out. If this address was not going to lead us to Cathy, why was Noel kidnapped? Was he scared that we would eventually trace him from here? No! There is something else that Noel knew about Victor. And Victor didn't want Noel to reveal that to the world. What is it? I wondered how to figure out the answers for all the questions that kept piling up.

By the end of the second cigarette, the four men jogged down the stairs as I stood up to my feet. One of the men handed me a half-burnt family picture of them. "We got only this sir, everything else is burnt and rotten"

I nodded scanning every small detail of the half-burnt and half-faded picture. It was of a middle-aged Mr. and Mrs. Anand with their five-year-old son. The villagers were right. The lady looked like an angel straight from heaven.

We then got back to our jeep and headed to the station of the Thirunelvi department of Police which was almost one and a half an hour from Kanyakumari. Neither did we rest anywhere nor did we have any food since we started from Coimbatore. We showed our IDs to the Tirunelveli police and asked if they could help us in finding a person called Vijay Anand and if he had ever resided in Tirunelveli twenty years back. They asked us to wait for a few minutes and soon handed us the information we needed.

Positively Vijay Anand had stayed in Thirunelveli fifteen years back but they didn't find anyone called Victor Anand confusing us again. They handed us a sheet with the address where Vijay Anand had stayed but also gave us additional information that he stayed there only for a year though we already knew it. We will maybe get the answer to where Victor Anand was once we reach the address given in the sheet.

As exhausted as we were, we first thought of booking a comfortable hotel room, fill our stomachs and then rest well before we made our next move. Anyway, we learned that we are now not close to where the girl is held. It was just going to be another investigation. Renita kept calling me for the last thirty minutes. Ignoring her calls I asked the SI to head to a nearby hotel with a heavy heart.

HAPPY READING!