Ritam Sen
The Body by the Ghat
The tram squealed as it curved past the Kalighat temple gates, the clattering wheels echoing through the alleyways still soaked from last night’s drizzle. The city was stirring — morning prayers floated out from open windows, chai stalls hissed to life, and vendors set up shop like they had every day for years. Kolkata, in its timeless rhythm, was waking up.
Inspector Arjun Dutta was halfway through his first cup of tea when the call came. The voice on the other end, a young constable posted at the Kalighat beat, was unusually tense.
“Sir… it’s a girl. Found her body down by the ghat. It’s bad. Very bad.”
“How bad?”
“Face… you should see it yourself.”
By the time Arjun reached the spot, the sun had barely breached the hazy skyline. His grey ambassador slid through the crowd, honking its way to the edge of the ghat steps, where a perimeter of yellow police tape had been hurriedly put up — not that it kept the onlookers at bay. Kalighat was no stranger to drama — stolen wallets, petty fights, runaway lovers — but this was something different. Even the old flower-sellers had fallen silent.
She lay half-submerged, her red and white sari wrapped tight like the river didn’t want to let go. A streak of vermillion still clung to her scalp, though smeared, and there was a broken anklet on her right foot, its beads scattered across the wet stone. Her left ear was torn, possibly where an earring had been ripped. And her face—
Arjun paused.
It wasn’t the work of the river.
The girl’s face had been deliberately mutilated. Not with rage. With calculation. Her features were slashed and marred in a way that erased identity. There was no sign of panic in the wounds — no hurried violence. Whoever had done this had taken their time.
The forensics team arrived shortly after. Dr. Ashima Ray, the city’s most meticulous pathologist, bent over the body and shook her head.
“Late teens, maybe early twenties,” she muttered. “Ligature marks on the neck. Multiple contusions on the wrist. She fought.”
“Time of death?”
“Between midnight and 3 a.m., I’d say. She didn’t drown. Someone made sure of that before the river saw her.”
Arjun scanned the surroundings — the peeling walls of the old guest houses nearby, the shabbily repainted Kali murals, the temple bell in the distance still chiming as if to signal a normal day.
“Anything on her?” he asked the constables going through her belongings.
“Nothing useful, sir. No ID. No phone. But this…”
The young constable handed him a chrome lighter, surprisingly clean for something retrieved from the river. A gift, most likely. On its underside, an engraving:
“To M — from A.”
Arjun pocketed it, frowning. “Send a photo of the body to missing persons. Discreetly. No leaks to the press. And scan reports from the last two weeks. She must’ve come from somewhere.”
As he stepped back into his car, a waft of ghat incense floated into the morning air, mingling with the scent of blood and river mud. He rolled the window down and looked once more at the stone steps where she had been found.
Kalighat was old — older than the city itself, some said. It had witnessed more than Arjun would in a lifetime. But today, even the ghat looked uneasy.
By mid-morning, the body had been moved to the morgue and Arjun sat in his office at Tollygunge Station, flipping through preliminary reports. No immediate matches from missing persons. No CCTV footage that clearly showed her entering or leaving Kalighat. No known sex offender in the area with a similar MO.
Just a dead girl. And a lighter.
The team logged the lighter’s serial code and reached out to local smoke shops, designer boutiques, even high-end gift stores. It was a rare piece — imported — and sold in only three shops in the city.
They were all in south Kolkata.
Arjun made calls, dispatched junior officers to retrieve purchase records. He knew it was a stretch, but in crimes like this, people left traces. Not always in blood — but in purchases, posts, whispers.
His phone buzzed.
Dr. Ashima again.
“Autopsy’s done,” she said. “No signs of sexual assault, but she was bound. And the face… Arjun, this wasn’t just about hiding identity. It was artistic. Precise.”
“What do you mean?”
“She was cut along natural lines — cheekbone, jaw, mouth. The kind of slices a portrait artist might use when reshaping a sculpture. This wasn’t rage. It was design.”
“Jesus Christ,” Arjun muttered.
“Oh, and she had one more thing. A tattoo. Tiny. Right above her left hip. A lotus.”
He hung up and stared at his whiteboard. A faceless girl. An imported lighter. A lotus tattoo. And a killer who thought himself an artist.
Outside, the city buzzed on. Puja banners flapped in the wind. Hawkers sang out offers. The tram rang again as it made its next loop.
Inside Arjun’s mind, though, a shadow was taking shape — a darkness draped in elegance.
He had seen many kinds of killers in his time. The ones who struck in panic, the ones who struck in hate.
But this one?
This one was building something.
And Mihira — if that was her name — was only the beginning.
To M — from A
The city was quieter the next morning, like it too had sensed something was wrong. Arjun Dutta walked into the station, still thinking about the girl’s face. Not the disfigurement — he had trained himself to stomach those — but the expression that somehow remained beneath it. Not fear. Not agony. Just… stillness.
His team had worked overnight. But there were no hits from the tattoo parlors in the immediate area. The lotus on her hip was delicate, done with precision. Likely by someone expensive.
He called in Sub-Inspector Brinda Pal, one of the sharpest in his unit.
“Check every tattoo studio from Gariahat to Rashbehari. Look for artists who specialize in fine-line work. Ask if they remember a girl in her early twenties with a request for a small lotus tattoo in the last six months.”
Brinda nodded and got to work.
Meanwhile, Arjun turned his attention back to the lighter. Imported. Sold in only three stores. One of them, “Cigar & Co.,” had clear transaction records. A card purchase dated 17th January. Buyer: Aryan Mallick.
That name again.
He pulled up Aryan’s profile from their internal system. No criminal record. Age 29. Upper-middle-class family. BFA from a London university. Returned to Kolkata five years ago and established a collective called Sundar Gaze—a kind of underground art society that held invitation-only events.
He lived in a restored colonial house near Southern Avenue. No prior reports. No red flags.
But something about him—itched. That afternoon, Arjun drove down alone.
Aryan Mallick’s house was the kind that architects drooled over. All wooden beams and wrought-iron balconies, dripping with potted ferns. An old-fashioned bronze nameplate read: “A. Mallick — Visual Artist.”
Aryan answered the door in loose khadi pants, barefoot, holding a glass of cold brew coffee. He looked freshly showered, composed.
“Inspector Dutta? What brings you here?”
Arjun showed his badge. “Just a few questions. Mind if I come in?”
“Of course not.
The interiors were like a Rabindrasangeet lyric turned to wallpaper — warm, rich, and unnervingly clean. Framed photographs lined the walls — black and white portraits, many of women. All striking. All silent.
Arjun’s eyes lingered on one in particular — a young girl in a sari, backlit by sunlight, eyes gazing somewhere far beyond the camera.
“Who’s this?”
Aryan sipped his coffee. “Ah. That’s Mihira. A muse. She had something rare—she didn’t pose, she just… existed.”
The name hit Arjun like a slow wind. “Mihira Basu?”
Aryan nodded. “Yes. But she stopped coming to our sessions. I assumed she lost interest.”
“When was the last time you saw her?”
“About two weeks ago. We had dinner at Bohemian. She seemed distracted.”
“Did she mention feeling threatened? Scared?”
Aryan laughed, softly. “She was dramatic, but not scared. Why? Has something happened to her?”
Arjun didn’t answer. Instead, he pulled out the lighter. “Recognize this?”
Aryan blinked. Just once.
“Yes,” he said. “I gave it to her. She admired it. So I had it engraved.”
“Who’s ‘A’?”
Aryan smiled. “Me, of course.”
The smile didn’t reach his eyes.
“Where were you on Thursday night, between 10 p.m. and 3 a.m.?”
“I was home. I even posted a photo to Instagram around 11. You’re welcome to check.”
“We will.”
Aryan led him out without protest, the perfect host all the way to the sidewalk.
“If Mihira’s in trouble, I hope you find her,” he said, voice dipped in honey.
Back in the car, Arjun didn’t respond. His instincts churned like storm water under a fragile bridge. Aryan was smooth. Too smooth. His words glided over truth like a sheen of varnish.
And Mihira? The look in her photograph didn’t match the stillness Arjun had seen at the ghat.
She’d known something.
She’d seen it coming.
That evening, the case broke open — slightly.
Brinda returned with a list of high-end tattoo parlors that had done lotus designs recently. Three girls had the tattoo in the same place — one of whom was, in fact, Mihira Basu.
“She got it at ‘Needle Sutra’ in Ballygunge,” Brinda reported. “The artist confirmed it. Said she was shy, kept glancing at the door. Mentioned she had a boyfriend who was intense, a bit possessive. Didn’t name him, though.”
It fit.
Arjun called in Mihira’s flatmate, Trina Das.
Trina sat nervously in the interrogation room, arms folded, makeup smudged like she hadn’t slept. Her voice was small.
“She said he made her feel special. Like she was the only one. But something changed. A few weeks ago, she started crying at night. Said she couldn’t leave him. Said he’d ruin her if she tried.”
“Did she name him?”
“No. But she said he was an artist. He made beauty feel dangerous.”
Arjun leaned back in his chair. The portrait of a monster was taking shape.
It had eyes like Aryan’s.
Later that night, Arjun sat alone in his office, watching the river move silently on the CCTV footage they’d retrieved. The angle wasn’t ideal, but at 2:17 a.m. the night of the murder, a faint figure appeared on the footbridge near Kalighat. Female, sari-clad, being led by someone taller. Shadows. Indistinct.
But at 2:31 a.m., only one figure returned.
A man.
Walking calmly. Hands in pockets.
He disappeared off-frame like he’d taken a morning stroll.
Arjun hit pause. Zoomed in. The face was obscured by grain and distance, but the posture—the grace in the walk—it matched someone he’d just seen.
Aryan Mallick.
He leaned forward, the fluorescent li
ghts flickering above him. Something deep in his gut burned like an old wound reopening.
This wasn’t over.
It was just beginning.
A Second Body
Kolkata was not the kind of city that panicked easily. It had lived through storms and sieges, blood on the tramlines, and smoke from burnt banners. But every so often, a silence fell over it — not the gentle hush of a lazy afternoon, but the taut stillness of something unspoken tightening its grip.
Two weeks had passed since Mihira Basu’s body was pulled from Kalighat. The news cycle had already shifted. Yet in the quiet corridors of Tollygunge Police Station, Inspector Arjun Dutta kept staring at that lighter.
“To M — from A.”
Aryan Mallick hadn’t slipped up. His alibi — the Instagram post, the logged food delivery receipt, the GPS from his car — all checked out. His answers were polished. He had the tone of a man who believed truth was whatever he chose to frame it as.
But Arjun didn’t believe in clean hands. Not in cases like this.
He just didn’t expect another body so soon.
The call came on a humid Tuesday morning.
A woman’s body had been found floating near Prinsep Ghat.
When Arjun reached the site, a crowd had gathered again — the curious, the horrified, the idle. The ghat here was more open, the river broader. Joggers had spotted the corpse caught between two boats, face down, her white dupatta soaked crimson.
“Same signs,” said Brinda, who’d arrived ahead of him. “Bruises. Ligature marks. Face…”
Arjun turned her gently over.
Her face was… almost gone. Mutilated along the cheekbones, lips cut into an unnatural curl, eyes swollen shut. The method was too deliberate, too clean for a panic kill.
“Goddamn it,” he muttered.
The girl was younger — early twenties again. A student from the look of her clothes. Slender frame, faded bangles, chipped nail polish.
Brinda handed him a plastic evidence bag.
Another lighter.
Different color. Same engraved lettering:
“To R — from A.”
Arjun stared at it like it had cursed him. Not because it was a clue — but because it was a performance. A message.
The killer wasn’t hiding.
He was leaving love notes.
The girl was identified by her hostel warden the same day. Rupa Dey. Age 21. B.A. student at Presidency University. Last seen attending an off-campus “art shoot” organized by a private collective.
Arjun already knew the name.
Sundar Gaze.
He requested every photo of the collective’s events. Most were carefully curated — moody lighting, dramatic eyes, shadows as poses. Many had Aryan’s signature aesthetic: melancholy wrapped in elegance.
In one shot, taken at a rooftop event three months ago, Mihira stood in profile. Rupa stood beside her, smiling faintly. Behind them, not touching but unmistakably present — Aryan, camera in hand.
“They were connected,” Arjun said. “This isn’t a serial killer in hiding. He’s building a goddamn gallery.”
He looked up the event’s guest list. Aryan had hand-picked everyone. No formal registrations. Cash-only entries.
Off the record, off the grid.
But one name appeared in both Mihira’s and Rupa’s contacts: a girl named Neelima, a fashion blogger and amateur photographer. Arjun called her in for questioning.
Neelima was skittish, chain-smoking in the station’s interview room. Her rings clinked against the metal table.
“I knew Aryan,” she said quickly. “I modeled for him once. But I stopped going to the shoots.”
“Why?”
She hesitated. “Because something was… off. He was never inappropriate. But he stared too long. He wanted vulnerability. He talked about death like it was part of the art. Some of the girls liked the mystery. I didn’t.”
“Did you know Mihira or Rupa?”
“I met Mihira twice. She was sweet, a little dreamy. Aryan adored her. She got the best shots. But then she started pulling away. Said she wasn’t sure she liked how he made her feel. And Rupa… she was just following Mihira.”
“Did Aryan ever threaten them?”
Neelima shook her head. “He didn’t need to. He had that kind of power where people wanted to please him. You didn’t say no to Aryan. You just stopped showing up. And even that felt dangerous.”
Arjun let her go, but her words stuck.
You didn’t say no to Aryan.
Not without consequence.
Back at headquarters, Arjun pulled Aryan’s file again. No charges. No priors. But now, two girls linked to him were dead — both with engraved lighters, both bound and discarded like broken frames.
He asked Brinda to dig into Aryan’s art collective. Finances, rentals, who handled bookings, what properties they’d used in the last year.
Hours later, she came back with a list.
And one name stood out — a rented warehouse in Tangra, leased in Aryan’s name for “private exhibits.”
No photos. No reports. Just a shell of a building, paid for in cash, still under contract.
“Get a team,” Arjun said. “We’re paying it a visit.”
The warehouse smelled of paint thinner and mildew. Dust floated through the sunlight slants like quiet ash. But there was something colder in the air — a stillness unnatural even for abandonment.
The first room was empty. But the second, hidden behind a black curtain, was not.
Photos.
Hundreds of them.
Taped to walls, spread across tables, stacked in black boxes.
Portraits of women — mostly anonymous, but a few unmistakable. Mihira. Rupa. Others they hadn’t identified yet. All shot in stark black and white. All with the same vacant gaze.
Some were unfinished — faces smeared with charcoal, eyes scratched out with red ink. And below each, in a looping cursive:
“Release No. 1”
“Release No. 2”
“Study of Silence, Frame 6”
“Before She Spoke.”
Arjun didn’t breathe for a moment.
He wasn’t chasing a killer. He was unraveling a performance.
A man who believed art gave him permission to play god.
Aryan Mallick hadn’t just murdered. He’d curated. Designed. Documented.
And he wasn’t done.
Not yet.
Into the Trap
The warehouse in Tangra had told Arjun one thing with brutal clarity—Aryan Mallick wasn’t hiding. He was documenting. Each photo, each inscription beneath those grainy prints, was a confession in calligraphy.
But it wasn’t enough.
Not in court. Not without a direct link. Aryan hadn’t appeared in any of the images. His name wasn’t on the lens tags. No DNA, no fingerprints. Just his aesthetic everywhere, haunting the margins.
“We need him red-handed,” Arjun said. “No more chess. No more cat-and-mouse.”
Brinda, arms folded beside him, nodded slowly. “Then we give him a new muse.”
The idea was dangerous. But it was the only way.
Arpita Bose wasn’t the kind of constable you underestimated. Sharp eyes, lean frame, street-smart. She’d once taken down a chain snatcher in Gariahat with nothing but a stiletto heel and a good grip. But this wasn’t like anything she’d done before.
“You want me to pose as a model?” she said.
“You’ll be undercover,” Arjun clarified. “A fresh face. An art enthusiast. You’ll respond to a casting call from Sundar Gaze. Aryan won’t be able to resist.”
“And if he tries something before you get in?”
“We’ll be listening,” Brinda said, showing her the tiny mic that would sit like a mole on her collarbone. “The team will be within 300 metres, armed. You’ll use the word ‘canvas’ if things go south.”
Arpita exhaled, looked once at the photo of Mihira on Arjun’s desk, and nodded. “Let’s catch him.”
The Sundar Gaze email was crafted perfectly: a new recruit seeking mentorship, enchanted by Aryan’s work, deeply moved by the melancholia in his portrait series.
Within two days, a reply came.
Subject: “Your Eyes Hold Silence”
From: Aryan Mallick
“Dear Amrita,
There is something in your expression—quiet, like the pause before a confession.
Would you join me for a private session?
Kalighat. This Friday. 9 p.m.
Come without makeup.
Come as you are.
– A.”
“He’s poetic when he’s planning murder,” Brinda muttered.
Arjun read the email thrice. “He’s going back to Kalighat. That’s significant.”
“Why?”
“It’s where he began. It’s where he feels powerful.”
Friday arrived heavy with clouds. The air was thick with storm-light, and Kalighat buzzed with anticipation. The team was in place—four plainclothes officers disguised as pandits, chaiwallahs, and rickshaw drivers. A backup van was stationed behind the temple’s south gate. Arjun stayed on comms with Brinda, who sat with the surveillance van.
Arpita, now “Amrita,” walked into the temple lane just before 9 p.m., dressed in a simple cotton sari. She looked nervous, just enough. Vulnerable, but curious.
Aryan was waiting by the ghat, dressed in white kurta-pajama, holding a leather-bound notebook and a small tripod bag. His smile was the same — carved into charm.
“You came,” he said.
Arpita nodded. “You asked.”
He led her up a narrow staircase beside a closed dharamshala. The terrace was dimly lit by fairy lights, strung between bamboo poles. A canvas sheet was pinned up behind a stool.
“Sit,” he said gently.
Arpita obeyed.
“You don’t need to pose. Just breathe.”
He circled her slowly, murmuring about shadows and the light of sorrow. He spoke like a director. Or a predator.
Arjun’s voice crackled in her ear: “We’re ten seconds from the stairwell. Keep him talking.”
Aryan set down the tripod and pulled out a cloth pouch. From it — gloves. A small blade. Gaffer tape.
“I want to preserve you in your truest form,” he whispered.
Arpita’s heart thumped. She looked up.
“Canvas,” she said.
It was like a gunshot through the airwaves.
In fifteen seconds, Arjun and three officers burst through the door. Aryan didn’t flinch. He turned slowly, blade still in hand, and sighed.
“Such beautiful tension,” he said.
Arjun didn’t reply. He kicked the blade away and cuffed Aryan hard enough to bruise.
“You’re under arrest for the murders of Mihira Basu and Rupa Dey,” he snapped. “And I suspect there’s more.”
Aryan smiled. “I didn’t kill them. I released them.”
Interrogation began the next morning.
Aryan sat in the sterile room with his fingers steepled, still wearing his blood-specked kurta. He looked serene.
“They weren’t murders,” he said. “They were transformations.”
“Into what?” Arjun asked.
“Into permanence. Photographs. Art. You decay, Inspector. I don’t.”
“And you think that justifies cutting their faces apart?”
“I made sure the world couldn’t mistake them for ordinary.”
Brinda slammed the table. “You’re not a prophet. You’re a butcher with delusions.”
Aryan tilted his head. “No, officer. I’m a curator. My gallery is in your city’s silence.”
They tried every tactic—baiting, silence, rage. Aryan never lost composure.
But then Arjun slid a photo across the table. A portrait they’d found in the Tangra warehouse. A girl none of them had identified yet.
“Who is she?” Arjun asked.
Aryan stared.
For a second—just a second—he blinked. A crack. A slip.
“That one wasn’t ready,” he murmured. “She ran.”
Arjun pressed. “Where is she now?”
Aryan stared at his own reflection in the mirror behind Arjun. “Somewhere… unfinished.”
They had him.
Later that night, as Arjun walked past the lock-up, Aryan called out.
“You’ll never find the others,” he said. “They live in frames now. And one day, people will call them divine.”
Arjun didn’t turn. “No one will remember your name. That’s your real punishment.”
And he meant it.
But deep down, he knew the city wouldn’t forget.
It never truly did.
It just waited.
What Aryan Hid
For two days, Aryan Mallick said nothing more. He sat in his cell at Lalbazar Central like a philosopher in exile—reading, scribbling in a tattered notebook, humming obscure Tagore tunes to himself. Some officers found him unnerving. Others found him pitiful. But Arjun Dutta knew better.
Aryan wasn’t done.
Not yet.
Arjun revisited the Tangra warehouse the next morning with Brinda and two forensic experts. This time, they were looking for the unfinished stories—what Aryan hadn’t curated yet. Behind one of the canvases pinned on the wall, they found a false panel. Hidden inside was a locked box, old and rusted.
Inside the box were three things: a flash drive, a notebook, and a photograph wrapped in plastic.
The photo was of a girl—mid-twenties, short-cropped hair, wearing a kurta with ink stains near the collar. She wasn’t posing. She looked like she’d been captured mid-laugh. It was one of the only images in the entire collection where the subject was alive.
No mutilation. No symbolism. Just… life.
On the back, in Aryan’s handwriting: “Eshita — The One I Failed.”
Arjun held the name like it was a lit match.
Back at the station, they plugged in the flash drive.
Dozens of folders opened. Each labeled with a single alphabet: “M,” “R,” “N,” “T.” Within each—video footage, audio recordings, and scanned diary pages. Aryan had documented everything. Every encounter. Every staged shoot. Conversations, arguments, even cries for help.
But Folder “E” was different.
Only one video.
Arjun clicked it.
A grainy recording began. Aryan and Eshita sat across from each other on a wooden floor, surrounded by paints and camera gear. Her voice was sharp.
“You don’t love them, Aryan. You consume them.”
“You’re wrong,” he said calmly. “I love them because they’re fleeting.”
“No. You love power. You love erasing women and pretending it’s art.”
He leaned closer to the camera, adjusting it.
Eshita stood. “This isn’t a studio anymore. It’s a crypt.”
Aryan looked up at her and whispered, “If I can’t frame you, I’ll never forgive you.”
The video ended there.
Brinda swore under her breath. “That’s motive.”
Arjun nodded slowly. “If Eshita’s still alive… she’s the key. She’s the one who got away.”
They ran Eshita’s name through every database they had. A match came back from a small photojournalism grant list from three years ago. Eshita Banerjee. Applied for a fellowship in visual ethnography. Address listed in Hatibagan, but no recent activity on her Aadhaar, no current phone number.
It was like she’d vanished.
“We try the neighbors,” Arjun said. “If she’s alive, she’s hiding. If she’s not…”
He didn’t finish the sentence.
They found her eventually—not in Kolkata, but in Sodepur, living under a different name, renting a single room above a ration shop. Her hair was longer now, dyed a dull brown. She taught English to local kids and never used her real surname.
When Arjun knocked on her door, she opened it with a quiet, wary look.
“You found me,” she said.
“Did you want to be found?”
“No.”
He introduced himself, gently. When she saw Aryan’s name on his badge, her face hardened.
“I told myself if I ever heard that name again, I’d run farther.”
“You don’t have to,” Arjun said. “He’s in custody. But you’re the only one who survived him.”
She exhaled, the kind of breath that released years.
They sat for hours.
Eshita told them everything.
She’d met Aryan during an exhibit in London, before he returned to Kolkata. They bonded over photography, over an obsession with capturing “what people hide.” She fell for him. Everyone did, at first. But slowly, he changed. His projects became darker, his muses younger, more fragile. He called it “worship.” She called it obsession.
When she tried to leave, he spiraled.
“He told me that I would only be beautiful if he ended me on his terms,” she said, fingers trembling.
One night, he tried.
“He brought out a blade. Said he wanted to carve my real expression.”
She ran. And she didn’t stop.
“I erased myself before he could.”
Brinda sat still, stunned. Arjun leaned forward.
“We need you, Eshita. You’re the only one who saw what came before the killing started. We believe he’s hurt others we haven’t even identified yet.”
“I won’t testify,” she said at once. “Not in court. Not on camera.”
“Then help us in private,” Arjun said. “Tell us how he thinks.”
She looked out the window. Children were playing in the alley below, laughter echoing through the heat.
“I’ll tell you everything,” she said finally. “But only once. After that, you let me disappear again.”
Arjun nodded. “Deal.”
Back in Lalbazar, Aryan still refused to admit guilt.
But his expression flickered the moment Arjun showed him the photo of Eshita.
“Ah,” Aryan whispered. “The missing chapter.”
“You failed her,” Arjun said.
“She failed me,” Aryan replied coldly. “She could’ve been divine. But she chose to rot in the ordinary.”
“Or maybe she chose to live.”
Aryan chuckled. “You really think you’ve won?”
“I don’t need to win,” Arjun said. “I just need to make sure no one else becomes your ‘art.’”
Aryan leaned back, smiling again. “Then you’d better hurry. Because somewhere in this city, someone is still waiting for their portrait.”
But Arjun was done playing games.
He walked out, photograph in hand, mind
already racing toward unfinished reports, new connections, hidden names in Aryan’s files.
The case wasn’t closed.
But the silence was over.
River of Echoes
The river was slow that morning, as if Kolkata itself was holding its breath.
Inspector Arjun Dutta stood at Kalighat Ghat, his boots darkening on the damp stone steps. Above him, the temple bells rang lazily, indifferent to the ghosts that had passed through this place. Below, the Hooghly rolled on—quiet, patient, eternal.
He hadn’t come here for ritual.
He had come to return something.
In his pocket, wrapped in soft cloth, was the photo of Mihira Basu—one of the few images recovered from Aryan Mallick’s private archive where her face was still whole. Arjun had chosen to give it back to her parents today, who had traveled down from Siliguri to perform her final rites.
He found them sitting by the edge of the water, holding a brass diya and a few marigolds. Mihira’s mother looked much older than her age; her father kept his gaze fixed on the current.
Arjun knelt quietly.
“This was hers,” he said, handing them the photo.
Her mother took it with trembling hands. She didn’t cry. She only touched Mihira’s image gently, like blessing a sleeping child.
“She always wanted to be seen,” she whispered.
“She was,” Arjun said. “In the end, she was.”
They lit the diya together and let it go. The little flame bobbed on the water, flickering once, then twice, before catching the wind and sailing forward—toward the middle of the river, into the widening light.
Back at Lalbazar, Aryan Mallick was quiet.
Since the mention of Eshita, he’d withdrawn. Refused food. Stopped humming. His smile had vanished, replaced by a look Arjun could only call haunted. Even the most delusional monsters, it seemed, feared failure.
Arjun spent the next two days combing through everything recovered from the Tangra warehouse. They were now certain there had been at least three other victims—unidentified women, no formal missing persons reports, possibly without families in the city.
He instructed Brinda to start a shadow project: going through local hospitals, NGOs, shelters, even morgue records under “Jane Doe” listings. Aryan’s gallery wasn’t done until every frame had a name.
Meanwhile, a new angle emerged from the forensic lab.
Among the physical evidence recovered from Aryan’s studio was a thin, faded notebook. Most of it was filled with quotes, sketches, and strange coded entries—until the final page.
There, in a messier hand than the rest, Aryan had scribbled:
“If beauty dies in darkness, let me be the one who lights the match.”
Below it, a list.
Five names.
Four were crossed out.
The fifth was still intact:
“S. Banerjee — Pending.”
“Who’s she?” Brinda asked.
Arjun looked up sharply. “Not who. Where.”
It took a few calls, but they traced the name to a young painter named Sahana Banerjee, last seen displaying work at a gallery Aryan had attended. She lived in a studio flat near Deshapriya Park, mostly kept to herself, and had reportedly missed a major exhibition the week before without notice.
Arjun’s pulse surged.
“We need to get to her. Now.”
They arrived at Sahana’s flat just before dusk. The door was ajar.
Inside: paint-splattered canvases, open windows, and a kettle still warm.
But no Sahana.
There was only a note, taped to the mirror:
“Meeting A. at the rooftop. Said it’s urgent. He wants to shoot one last series before I leave the city.”
The address was scrawled below. It was an abandoned building—formerly a guest house—three lanes from Kalighat.
Of course.
He was going back to where it all began.
They moved fast.
Arjun, Brinda, and four officers headed out in plain clothes, weaving through narrow lanes and past evening crowds. The sky had begun to darken, and thunder rolled distantly over the city.
They reached the rooftop at 7:47 p.m.
Aryan stood in the centre of the concrete terrace, camera in hand, Sahana seated on a rusted stool. She looked pale, dazed—but unharmed. The breeze caught her hair, and she turned just as Arjun stepped into the light.
Aryan didn’t flinch.
“I knew you’d come,” he said.
“Step away,” Arjun said. “Now.”
Aryan looked at the camera, then at Sahana. “She’s perfect. The light tonight… it’s holy.”
Brinda moved forward, weapon drawn. “Step. Away.”
He did.
But not before whispering something in Sahana’s ear.
She shuddered.
Arjun grabbed him, wrenching the camera from his grip. The screen blinked once before going black.
“No more frames,” Arjun growled. “This gallery is closed.”
In custody, Aryan finally broke.
Not from pressure. Not from pain.
But from silence.
He spoke in fragments—names, places, metaphors. He confessed to five murders. Suggested there were others. He refused to provide exact details. Instead, he called them “releases.”
“They begged to be seen,” he said. “I showed them to the world.”
“You destroyed them,” Arjun replied.
Aryan’s last words before they took him away were:
“Beauty is never kind, Inspector. It demands blood.”
Arjun said nothing. Some men weren’t worth arguing with.
Some men were only worth stopping.
Months later, the city remembered Mihira and Rupa. Their names became hashtags, murals, whispered warnings at art colleges. Eshita disappeared again—quietly, this time with the police’s help. Sahana recovered, though she never painted the same way again.
Aryan was tried and convicted. Life imprisonment, no parole. His final portfolio was never released. Arjun made sure of that.
But some nights, when the wind rose over Kalighat and the bells rang a moment too long, Arjun still thought of the river. Of the diya. Of the girls whose stories now lived in files, framed in justice instead of grief.
He didn’t believe in ghosts.
But he believed in echoes.
And this city? This strange, sprawling, sacred, haunted city—
It remembered everything.
END
