"Madam Ji, you visited the Minister's residence yesterday? That too alone?" SI Daleep Bedi questioned her in bewilderment. "Didn't he threaten you or something?"
"Yeah, he did yell at me that he'll transfer me to Andaman if we don't find his daughter at the earliest." She answered back nonchalantly, her eyes still focused on the details in the file.
"What did you do then?" ASP Gaurav Jain inquired with widened eyes.
"I stared at him; he stared back at me. We played the staring game for five minutes straight. At last, he gave up, and then I recorded his and his wife's testimony. His other daughter was not there, though. He sent her off to Bangalore to her maternal grandparents place for safety."
"Such a classic Profiler Rao move." ASP Jishu Fernandes humored.
Everyone else chuckled.
"Enough." Raghav intervened. "The rest of you, what did the parents whom you people visited say? Timeline, I mean?"
"Matching story, sir ji—September, October, and November. From 2014 to this year, it's the same timeline. In fact, the parents whom we contacted on their phone numbers also testified the same." Inspector Praapti Maartand sighed.
"Did you people notice something? Every year, exactly a total of fifty girls are abducted in the month of May." ASP Patwardhan Singh quipped.
"So, what's new in that?" Rukmini asked in confusion.
"Arey, what I mean to say is that May has 31 days in total. Isn't it?" Patwardhan clicked his tongue as he tried to make his point clear.
All of them nodded.
"So, now if you divide fifty girls by thirty-one days, it gives you an average of one point six girls per day. And if we roughly estimate on the basis of this logic, the syndicate should abduct at least one to two girls per day. But what are they doing? They are taking gaps in between. On May 1st, one girl was abducted. On May 2, two girls were abducted, while on May 3, three girls were abducted. And then came a twist! On May 4th, that is, yesterday, not even a single girl was abducted. Even today, it is already. . ."
He brought his wrist up to check the time on his watch. "It's six-fifteen p.m. already, yet we haven't received a single missing complaint till now." He paused, trying to surmise the expression of the criminal psychologist on the opposite side of the round table.
Alas! The lady in the pale green saree still sat at her designated place, absolutely poker-faced.
He sighed and then continued. "In the previous years as well, the syndicate would take gaps in between and abduct a varying number of girls in May, sometimes going as far as to abduct four to five girls per day. Isn't that too much of a hassle? I mean, why waste one or two days in between and take up the risk of abducting three, four, or five girls a day at times rather than work every day and abduct one or two girls with ease per day?" He pointed out as he looked at the perplexed expressions engulfing the faces of his other team members.
"My point is that it would be much easier for the syndicate to carry out its plans every day, yet it abducts girls only on some specified number of days in May, which means there could perhaps be a pattern in the days on which these abductions are occurring as well." He ended his monologue.
"Sounds so absurd." Gaurav voiced out.
"Yeah. " Ramandeep agreed.
"He has a point." Suddenly, a faint feminine voice echoed in the confines of the SIT office.
"I concur." Raghav voiced out next.
The other eight, including Patwardhan himself, directed their gazes keenly at the two figures with complete attention.
YOU ARE READING
Secrets Hidden In Time (Time #1)
Romance| 'Time' Series: Book One | *** The workings of her brain were a mystery to her own pneuma. That's what Hinduja Rao always thought. But, quite similar to her thoughts about her own self, was someone else around her. Her newly wedded husband, the...
13 | The Supposedly Dead Trigger & The Baptism Ceremony
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