1
The mist rolled in heavy that night over Shobhabazar, clinging to the crumbling walls of century-old houses and hanging like a curtain in the narrow lanes where time seemed frozen. It was here, in the heart of North Kolkata’s labyrinth, that the silence was broken by the shrill cry of a milk vendor who stumbled upon the body. Bimal “Banker” Ghosh, a man known in whispers as both a petty moneylender and a sly informant of his younger years, lay sprawled in the mud, his throat slit with chilling precision. The flickering glow of a dim streetlamp caught the gleam of blood on the cobblestones, a stark contrast to the stillness around him. Neighbors emerged hesitantly from their shuttered doors, their faces pale in the fog, muttering fragments of gossip, fear, and half-remembered stories about Ghosh’s past. By the time the police arrived, the atmosphere had grown tense, as though the alley itself had witnessed something unspeakable and would never release its secret so easily.
Inspector Partha Mukherjee pushed through the crowd, his leather shoes splashing in the damp alley. His sharp eyes scanned the scene, taking in the absence of panic around the corpse—this was no random assault, but a killing performed with the discipline of someone who wanted to make a statement. A chalk symbol scrawled on the wall just beside the body caught his attention: two intersecting circles with a crude cross inside, a mark with no immediate meaning yet brimming with menace. Partha muttered orders to his team, cordoning off the lane as journalists from local dailies swarmed like vultures. Camera flashes lit up the fog, turning the crime scene into a grotesque stage. Within hours, headlines screamed across the city: “By-Lane Killer Strikes in North Kolkata.” The nickname stuck, carried in hushed tones across tea stalls, trams, and newspaper stands, the mystery feeding the city’s hunger for dread. Whispers grew louder when some elderly residents mentioned a long-forgotten robbery that had left scars still unhealed, though few dared to draw the connection aloud.
That night, as the body was carried away and the alley emptied, the city’s undercurrent of unease deepened. Partha knew instinctively that this was not just another killing in a city accustomed to crime; there was history in this murder, something old and unfinished that had clawed its way back into the present. In the police headquarters, his superiors pressed him for quick answers, anxious to contain public panic, while the press demanded soundbites to feed their breaking news cycles. Yet for all his experience, Partha could not shake the sense that he was standing at the edge of a puzzle far larger than he imagined. The faint chalk mark on the wall lingered in his thoughts, as did the rumors that Ghosh had once played a role in betraying men during a notorious heist decades earlier. Shobhabazar’s mist would eventually lift with the dawn, but for Inspector Partha and the people of Kolkata, the shadow of the By-Lane Killer had just begun to spread, promising more bodies, more secrets, and a reckoning long overdue.
2
The morning after the Shobhabazar murder, the city buzzed with anxious chatter, but in a crumbling two-storied house tucked inside another narrow lane of North Kolkata, Prabir Roy awoke to a silence that had become both his comfort and his prison. Once a man whose name commanded respect in the Kolkata Police force, he now shuffled through rooms lined with stacks of yellowing case files, his body frail but his eyes still carrying the sharp glint of memory. He brewed tea in an old aluminum kettle, his hands trembling slightly, and sat by the window overlooking the moss-covered courtyard, staring absently at a newspaper headline screaming: “By-Lane Killer Strikes Again?” The words pierced through him, reopening a wound that had never healed—the 1997 Eastern Bank Robbery. He had led that investigation with unshakable resolve, but it had ended in humiliation. The culprits vanished, lives were lost, and whispers of corruption in the force eroded his reputation. Though retired for years, the robbery clung to him like a phantom, replaying in his sleepless nights, mocking him with what he could not solve.
As he scanned the article about Bimal Ghosh’s death, the details pulled him deeper into the past. The method of killing—the precision, the silence, the mark left behind—did not speak of impulse but of design. Prabir’s instincts, dulled by time but not extinguished, recognized a pattern. Ghosh’s name triggered an old memory: a line in a forgotten testimony, a faint connection to the bank robbery investigation, where Ghosh had been whispered about as an informer who betrayed both sides for his own gain. It was too sharp a coincidence to dismiss. The retired detective pulled out one of his dusty steel trunks, unlocking it with effort. Inside lay bundles of files from 1997, brittle with age but alive with the weight of unfinished justice. Names leapt at him—drivers, insiders, petty criminals, all of whom had slipped through the cracks. And now, two decades later, one of them was dead in a manner that felt less like murder and more like a message. His hands clenched the edges of the file, his heart heavy with the knowledge that this case had returned to mock him, daring him to look at it once more.
The thought of involvement gnawed at him. His health was failing; the short walk to the corner tea stall left him breathless, and his daughter refused to visit, weary of his obsession with ghosts of the past. Yet guilt burned stronger than weakness. If the By-Lane Killer was truly connected to the robbery, then Prabir could not remain a spectator. He owed it to the victims of 1997, to the city that still whispered his name with disappointment, and most of all, to himself. Lighting a cigarette, he leaned back in his worn armchair, smoke curling against the damp walls, and muttered under his breath: “It isn’t over. It was never over.” The alleyways of Kolkata had not forgotten, and neither had he. For the first time in years, his mind sharpened with purpose, even if his body lagged behind. Prabir Roy, once dismissed as a relic, would walk again into the fog of North Kolkata’s by-lanes—because this case, whether it killed him or saved him, was his final chance at redemption.
3
Prabir Roy’s return to the streets was hesitant but inevitable. He found himself at the Shobhabazar crime scene two days after the murder, his old police badge tucked in his wallet though it no longer carried authority. The alley still smelled faintly of blood, though the body was gone and the police tape fluttered loosely in the humid air. Inspector Partha Mukherjee stood with a cigarette between his fingers, giving statements to a couple of junior officers. When he noticed Prabir approaching, his eyes narrowed with irritation. Partha respected legends in uniform, but in his mind, Prabir was not a legend—he was a cautionary tale. “With due respect, sir, you shouldn’t be here,” Partha said, his tone clipped. But Prabir, leaning slightly on his cane, ignored the dismissal. He spoke softly yet firmly, pointing to the wall where faint white streaks still lingered—a chalk symbol nearly erased by time and weather. “You’re looking at the body, Partha. I’m looking at the message,” he said, his words heavy with the authority of someone who had stared at death scenes longer than he could remember.
Partha scoffed, unwilling to indulge what he saw as the ramblings of a retired man clinging to relevance. Yet standing nearby was Dr. Roshni Chatterjee, the young forensic expert tasked with re-examining the site. Unlike Partha, she studied Prabir with quiet interest. She had read about him during her training—his sharp deductions, his near-obsessive methods, and, of course, his disgrace after the Eastern Bank case. Where others saw a broken relic, she sensed an unpolished edge of wisdom. “Inspector, maybe we should hear him out,” she suggested. Partha frowned but did not stop her as she followed Prabir toward the chalk mark. He crouched with surprising steadiness, tracing the faint lines with his finger. Two intersecting circles with a cross at the center—a symbol that had appeared in his old case notes from 1997, used by one of the getaway men as a secret identifier. The sight of it now, in the same neighborhood, made his skin prickle. “This isn’t random graffiti,” Prabir murmured. “It’s a signature. Someone is calling back to that night we all tried to forget.” Roshni leaned closer, her scientific curiosity piqued. She could already see how the symbol’s shape and placement suggested intent, not chance.
As the three stood in tense silence, the dynamics between them crystallized. Partha felt his authority threatened, yet he could not deny the way Prabir seemed to peel back layers invisible to others. Roshni, on the other hand, found herself torn between loyalty to her current superior and admiration for the old detective’s instincts. She broke the moment by stating firmly, “If this mark links to the bank robbery, it changes the profile of the killer. We’re not looking at a lunatic. We’re looking at someone with memory, motive, and a method.” Prabir nodded, his weary face catching the pale sunlight filtering through the mist. He knew Partha would continue resisting him, but with Roshni on his side, he felt a sliver of validation he had not tasted in years. For the first time since retirement, the shadows did not feel like enemies; they felt like old companions, guiding him back into a game he thought he had lost forever. As he turned away from the wall, Prabir whispered more to himself than to them: “The By-Lane Killer isn’t just striking bodies… he’s reopening graves.” And with those words, the reluctant alliance began, fragile yet essential, as the lanes of North Kolkata tightened their grip on all three.
4
The sound of rain against the tin roof took Prabir Roy back to that night in 1997, when chaos engulfed the Eastern Bank on College Street. He had arrived minutes after the alarm was raised, his siren slicing through the midnight downpour. Masked men had stormed the bank with ruthless precision, disabling the guards, forcing the vault open, and escaping with bags heavy with cash and gold. The city had not seen such audacity in decades, and for weeks the name “Eastern Bank Robbery” dominated every conversation from tea stalls to pressrooms. Prabir had led the investigation with the fire of a man determined to uphold justice. He traced suspects across lanes, raided hideouts, and followed whispers from the underworld, yet the gang seemed to dissolve into the city itself. Key informants went missing, potential witnesses recanted their statements, and inside the police department itself, there were murmurs of betrayal. By the time the case was officially declared cold, Prabir’s reputation had taken a blow. His career never recovered from the stain of failure, though no one knew how deeply the case had scarred him.
Sitting in his dimly lit room years later, the case files spread across his desk like a battlefield of ghosts, Prabir ran his hand over photographs that had yellowed with age. There was Bimal “Banker” Ghosh, caught in a blurry surveillance image outside the bank days before the heist. There was Madhabi Saha’s brother, one of the clerks who had vanished with suspicions of being a silent accomplice. And then Amalendu Pal, once a driver, whose name had been scrawled in the margins of an anonymous tip-off. Every page he turned now breathed a sinister truth: the By-Lane Killer was not choosing victims at random. Each murder so far was a deliberate strike against people tied, directly or indirectly, to the robbery. But what troubled Prabir most was not just the killer’s knowledge of these names—it was the precision with which they were hunted, as if someone had waited decades to settle scores long buried beneath the city’s dust. The chalk mark he and Roshni had seen suddenly felt less like a taunt and more like a signature etched from that forgotten past, dragging the present back into the shadows of betrayal.
The flashbacks blended into his waking thoughts, and Prabir realized that the robbery had never ended—it had merely gone underground, festering. He scribbled notes, his handwriting shaky yet urgent, drawing lines between victims, suspects, and police failures. Betrayal was the thread weaving through them all: Bimal had betrayed both criminals and law for his own profit, Madhabi’s brother had betrayed his bank and disappeared, Amal had betrayed his gang by keeping a portion of the loot hidden. One by one, those betrayals were now being punished. Yet a question gnawed at him—who was wielding the knife after all these years? The original robbers? A forgotten accomplice? Or someone who had lost more than money that night? Lighting another cigarette, Prabir felt the room close in around him, the smoke mingling with his memories. He was no longer a retired man staring at dead files. He was once again the detective chasing a phantom through Kolkata’s rain-slick lanes. Only this time, he knew he wasn’t just chasing justice—he was chasing redemption, and redemption would not wait forever.
5
The city had just begun to catch its breath after the Shobhabazar killing when Kumartuli, the quarter of sculptors and clay idols, awoke to another nightmare. In the narrow by-lane where artisans molded gods out of river clay, the lifeless body of Madhabi Saha, a respected schoolteacher, was discovered slumped against the wall of a half-finished Durga idol. Her dupatta was twisted tightly around her neck, the fabric digging cruelly into her skin, leaving marks of a struggle that was short yet brutal. The juxtaposition was grotesque—an idol of the goddess staring down with serene eyes while death clung to the feet of the woman below. Word spread quickly, traveling from artisan workshops to tea stalls, until crowds pressed in around the lane, murmuring in disbelief. Madhabi had been beloved in her neighborhood, known for her discipline, her devotion to students, and her quiet dignity. Unlike Bimal Ghosh, who had enemies, Madhabi had no known quarrels. That only deepened the fear—if a woman like her could be targeted, then no one in North Kolkata was safe.
When Inspector Partha Mukherjee arrived, the air was thick with the smell of clay and incense, a surreal backdrop to the horror. He barked orders, pushing reporters back as they snapped photographs with relentless hunger. Once again, faint chalk markings appeared near the scene, this time clearer than before—two overlapping circles with a cross, drawn in deliberate strokes on the brick wall behind the body. Roshni Chatterjee bent down to examine the victim, her gloved fingers noting the consistency of the strangulation marks, the absence of hesitation, the precision of someone who had killed before. But it was Prabir Roy who pieced the fragments together with the intensity of a man reliving old wounds. Madhabi’s name was not unfamiliar to him. He remembered her brother, a junior bank employee who had gone missing soon after the 1997 robbery. Rumors had whispered that he had been the inside man, helping launder stolen money before disappearing without a trace. If Ghosh’s murder could be dismissed as underworld business, this killing shattered the illusion. The By-Lane Killer was working with a ledger, a list of names linked by an old betrayal.
News of the second killing spread panic across Kolkata. The press, emboldened by the drama, splashed headlines in bold: “By-Lane Killer Targets the Innocent.” Tea stall conversations turned darker, parents pulled their children indoors before dusk, and the city’s festivals took on a shadow of dread. To Prabir, the murder was confirmation of his greatest fear—the past was not done with him. He sat that night with Roshni in her small forensic office, files spread between them like pieces of a cursed puzzle. She was cautious but open to his insights, while Partha remained irritated, more concerned with the commissioner’s pressure to deliver results than the deeper truths lurking beneath the surface. Yet Prabir knew that each victim’s death was not just random cruelty but part of a systematic cleansing, a reckoning that had been brewing for decades. He lit another cigarette, the flame briefly illuminating his weary face, and whispered to himself, “He’s wiping the slate clean.” The goddess idols in Kumartuli would rise soon for the festival, but for the city, a different fear was being sculpted—one not of clay, but of blood, betrayal, and the relentless hand of a killer determined to finish what history had left undone.
6
The search for answers led Prabir and Roshni into the suffocating heart of North Kolkata’s underworld, where whispers carried more weight than evidence. Their target was Subir Dutta, an ex-convict recently released after serving years for armed robbery. Subir was no stranger to Prabir—he had surfaced as a suspect back in 1997, his name etched faintly in the margins of the Eastern Bank files. They found him in a dimly lit gambling den near Chitpur, his lean frame hunched over a cigarette, tattoos curling up his forearms like old scars. At first, Subir scoffed at their questions, mocking Prabir as a “tired old dog chasing shadows.” But when pressed, his smirk faltered. He spoke in riddles, hinting at betrayals that had torn the robbery gang apart. “You think the loot was the problem?” he rasped. “It was the lies. Someone inside sold the others out. That’s why men vanished, that’s why blood was spilled.” His words hung heavy in the stale air, too vague for evidence yet sharp enough to cut through years of silence. Though he refused to name names, his cryptic warnings made one thing clear: the By-Lane Killer’s motive was rooted in a betrayal that had festered for decades.
As Prabir walked away from the den, his cane tapping against the uneven stones, he felt the weight of time pressing harder on him. Subir’s words stirred up memories he had tried to bury—the missed clues, the false leads, the gnawing suspicion that the 1997 case had been sabotaged from within. Roshni, walking beside him, sensed the storm in his silence. She admired his ability to read people, yet she also worried about how deeply this case was pulling him back into obsessions that had already ruined his life once. But before she could voice her concerns, another complication arose—Prabir’s estranged daughter, Nibedita Roy, entered the picture. A sharp, ambitious journalist working for a city daily, Nibedita had seized on the “By-Lane Killer” story with the hunger of a professional chasing her big break. Her articles were bold, weaving together crime-scene details with commentary on police inefficiency, earning her both readers and enemies. When she spotted her father’s shadow near the crime scene reports, old anger resurfaced. To her, Prabir was not a heroic detective but a man who had abandoned his family for the ghosts of unsolved cases, leaving her mother to carry the burden of his silence.
Their confrontation came late one evening outside her newsroom, where Nibedita found him waiting with a newspaper folded under his arm. The sight of him standing there, frail yet stubborn, brought a rush of conflicting emotions. “You think you can just walk back into this story, Baba?” she snapped, her voice low but sharp. “This case destroyed you once. Do you want it to destroy me too?” Prabir, usually armed with logic and defiance, faltered. He had no defense against the truth she carried in her eyes—the truth of years lost, birthdays missed, conversations never had. Yet beneath her fury, she too felt the pull of the case. The murders were no longer just stories to fill columns; they were threads tied to her father’s unfinished war. Roshni, watching from a distance, realized the killer was not the only one reopening old wounds. The city’s alleys were resurrecting betrayals, not just from criminals but from families torn apart by obsession. As the night deepened, Prabir stood torn between two battles: the one in the shadows of Kolkata’s lanes, and the one in the heart of his own daughter. Both, he knew, would demand truths he had long been too afraid to face.
7
The lanes of Kumartuli had barely settled from the shock of Madhabi Saha’s murder when another killing shattered the fragile calm. This time, the crime unfolded in the heart of Bagbazar, outside a modest sweet shop that had been a neighborhood favorite for decades. Amalendu “Amal” Pal, the kindly owner known for his syrupy rosogollas and patient smile, was discovered lying face down behind his counter, his head brutally caved in with a heavy iron pestle. The glass jars of sweets lay shattered around him, syrup and sugar mixing with blood in a grotesque tableau. Neighbors, who had grown up buying sweets from him, whispered in disbelief—Amal was harmless, almost fatherly, the sort of man who handed extra mishti to children for free. But as the police examined the scene, the brutality of the killing suggested something far darker. The third chalk mark was drawn in bold strokes on the tiled wall: two intersecting circles with a cross, daring investigators to connect the dots. With three murders in quick succession, panic spread like wildfire. The city no longer saw a faceless killer—it saw a deliberate executioner, methodically targeting his prey.
For Prabir Roy, Amalendu Pal’s name struck like a bell from the past. In the thick of the 1997 Eastern Bank Robbery investigation, Amal had been whispered about as one of the getaway drivers, though nothing had been proven. Prabir remembered chasing false leads that suggested Amal had abandoned his criminal contacts to start a respectable life as a shopkeeper. Yet here he was, dead in his own shop, not just murdered but punished. As Roshni combed through the crime scene, her gloved hands brushing away syrup-stained papers, she found a hidden ledger tucked beneath the counter. The entries were cryptic, written in shorthand, but unmistakably financial—lists of coded transactions, initials, and amounts that hinted at something far larger than a small-time driver could have managed. It was not Amal’s handwriting, either; someone else had entrusted him with it, perhaps forcing him to keep records. Prabir’s fingers trembled as he flipped through the book, his eyes catching a chilling pattern. The ledger pointed not only to the names of missing gang members but also to an unseen figure—someone who had coordinated the heist, distributed the money, and then disappeared into the city’s shadows. Amal’s role had not been accidental. He had been a keeper of secrets, and now those secrets had killed him.
The discovery deepened the nightmare. If Amal’s ledger was genuine, then the By-Lane Killer was not merely settling scores but systematically erasing every trace of the robbery. Each murder silenced a witness, destroyed a link, and drew attention back to the crime that had ruined Prabir’s life. Roshni urged caution, suggesting they hand the ledger over to Partha immediately, but Prabir resisted. He knew too well how easily evidence disappeared when the wrong hands were involved, and the ledger felt too dangerous to trust to bureaucratic channels. Meanwhile, news of Amal’s death spread quickly, and journalists swarmed the sweet shop, demanding answers. Among them was Nibedita, notebook in hand, her sharp eyes noticing the way her father clutched the ledger like a lifeline. Their silent standoff across the crime scene spoke volumes—she recognized his obsession, he recognized her determination. Neither would let go of the truth, even if it consumed them. As night fell, the smell of sweets still lingered faintly in the air, mingling with the stench of blood. To the city, it was another killing. To Prabir, it was a sign that the web was tightening—and somewhere in its dark heart, a mastermind waited, pulling threads while the alleys ran red.
8
The city’s nerves were frayed when Subir Dutta’s name began circling through police files and media whispers. A former convict with a tarnished record, he was the perfect scapegoat—easy to brand guilty in the public eye, easier still to silence under the weight of old sins. Commissioner Dey, already battered by headlines questioning police efficiency, demanded swift resolution, and Subir was thrust into the spotlight as the “likely killer.” Inspector Partha, though cautious, bowed under pressure and began drafting the case that would officially link Subir to the By-Lane murders. But while others were relieved at the prospect of closing the file, Prabir Roy stood apart, his instincts sharpened not by ambition but by decades of chasing shadows. He studied the patterns of the murders, the surgical precision, the ritualistic chalk marks—and nothing about them spoke of Subir. The man had a past steeped in petty crime and betrayal, yes, but he lacked the cold calculation, the obsessive artistry that defined the By-Lane Killer. To Prabir, the framing was too neat, too convenient, and that in itself was a warning.
Prabir decided to meet Subir in the dim confines of his crumbling room, where the ex-convict lived like a ghost of his former self. Subir’s eyes carried the dullness of a man long punished by both law and fate, yet there was a flicker of something deeper—fear. “They want me to hang for this,” Subir rasped, his fingers trembling over a glass of tea. “But I know things about that night in ’97. Things they never wrote down.” His words stirred the dust of memory in Prabir’s mind, pulling back to the robbery that had carved permanent scars across Kolkata. Subir hinted at betrayal among the gang, whispered names that were either dead, missing, or now targets of the killer’s vengeance. He spoke of money that had vanished without a trace, of hands that had grown bloodier with time. What struck Prabir most was not what Subir said, but how he said it—with resignation, not denial. This man might be many things, but he was not the hunter stalking the lanes with chalk and blade. When Prabir pressed harder, Subir only lowered his gaze and muttered, “The killer’s chasing debts none of us ever paid.” The detective left with more questions than answers, but with one certainty: Subir Dutta was not the wolf, only another shadow terrified of the true predator.
That night, as mist rolled over the lanes, the killer struck again—not with blood, but with symbols. Fresh chalk marks appeared on the walls of Kumartuli, mocking both the police and their hollow victory in pinning blame. The symbols were sharper this time, etched with confidence, as though the murderer was daring them to look deeper. For Prabir, it was confirmation. Subir’s imprisonment or death would not stop the cycle; it would only appease officials and feed headlines, while the real hunter prowled freely. Commissioner Dey raged, demanding results, but Prabir knew the truth: the killer was playing a far more intricate game than anyone wished to admit. Every move, every mark, was a reminder that this was not merely a spree but a reckoning tied to the betrayals of 1997. Standing alone in the dim alleys, Prabir felt the city breathe with secrets, its walls watching silently as he pieced together fragments of an old crime turned into a present nightmare. The hunter was still in the lanes, and Prabir knew the chase had only just begun.
9
The rift between Prabir Roy and his daughter Nibedita had always been a wound that never healed—years of silence, resentment, and unspoken grief etched into every glance they exchanged. Yet the murders forced their paths to cross more often, and when Nibedita’s reporting led her deep into the archives of the 1997 Eastern Bank Robbery, she unearthed something neither could ignore. In a bundle of yellowing files tucked away in a forgotten police storeroom, she discovered evidence of deliberate tampering: missing pages from statements, signatures that didn’t align, and coded notations pointing to payoffs that had slipped through official records. The betrayal wasn’t just from the robbers who vanished into the night—it was from within the very institution meant to uphold the law. The possibility that officers in uniform had aided the heist, or deliberately let suspects walk free, shook her as a journalist and as a daughter of the detective who had once sworn to bring justice. She brought the documents to Prabir not with the fire of accusation, but with the reluctant vulnerability of someone who wanted to understand the truth her father had sacrificed everything for.
For Prabir, the sight of those files was both vindication and torment. He had suspected interference all those years ago, but to see proof in his daughter’s hands reopened wounds he had buried under guilt and whiskey. Their conversation began awkwardly, layered with old bitterness. Nibedita accused him of choosing obsession over family, of letting a robbery consume their lives until their home had become a battleground of silence. Prabir, in turn, confessed that his failure to solve the case had crushed him so completely that he had withdrawn not only from the force but from her life. The words spilled out raw, unfiltered, neither raising voices but both carrying decades of hurt in their tones. And yet, in the dim light of his cluttered study, something shifted. For the first time in years, they allowed themselves to acknowledge the grief they had shared—her mother’s absence, the emptiness of their home, the nights when neither could speak without reopening scars. The case had stolen not only justice but also their bond, and now, in the middle of another storm, they realized that perhaps working together was the only way to salvage both.
Their reconciliation wasn’t gentle, but it was honest, forged through the urgency of the moment. As they cross-checked the documents against Prabir’s old notes, a chilling pattern emerged. Each victim so far had been connected to someone who played a role in either aiding or profiting from the robbery. But a new name appeared in the files—a bank auditor who had flagged inconsistencies in accounts right before the heist, only to vanish quietly into retirement. Cross-referencing with recent police surveillance, Nibedita discovered that the man still lived in Kolkata, near Jorasanko, in a crumbling old house lined with fading portraits. The documents suggested he had once threatened to go public with his findings. To the killer, such a man would be unfinished business, another loose end to be tied off with surgical precision. Prabir and Nibedita looked at each other, the silence between them no longer estranged but united by urgency. The killer’s hand was already reaching for its next victim, and if they didn’t move fast, the By-Lane Killer would strike again.
10
The crumbling mansion in North Kolkata’s labyrinth of lanes was a relic of a forgotten age, its walls damp with years of neglect, its corridors echoing with the hush of lost voices. Prabir Roy, weary yet resolute, pushed open the heavy wooden doors with Inspector Partha and Dr. Roshni close behind, their footsteps crunching on broken tiles and plaster dust. The chalk marks, those mocking symbols that had haunted the case, glowed faintly in the moonlight filtering through fractured windows, leading them like a trail toward the heart of the ruin. There, in the cavernous hall, they confronted the figure who had orchestrated months of terror—the man whose eyes burned with a fury that time had not dimmed. He was no professional criminal, no faceless psychopath, but Satyen Basak, the forgotten son of a bank guard who had been gunned down during the 1997 robbery. He had been a boy then, cast adrift in grief and poverty, abandoned by the very city his father had served. Rage had raised him, and vengeance had given him purpose. Each victim had been, in his eyes, complicit in the betrayal that killed his father, whether directly or through silence. Now, with knife in hand and madness in his gaze, he revealed the truth: his killings were not random—they were justice, his form of retribution against a world that had long erased his father’s sacrifice.
The confrontation spiraled into chaos. Partha barked commands, his pistol trembling, while Roshni tried to calm the storm with reason, but Satyen’s grief was too deep, too consuming to be swayed. He lunged forward, forcing Prabir into a desperate struggle across the broken marble floor. In the heat of the clash, the retired detective’s age and frailty betrayed him, yet his determination burned brighter than the young man’s rage. Nibedita, who had followed despite his protests, screamed as the fight teetered on a knife’s edge. In a tragic heartbeat, Partha tried to intervene, but the blade struck him, claiming his life in a gasp that silenced the hall. The death was sudden, shocking, and yet devastatingly inevitable—the killer’s final strike before justice could be sealed. Prabir, his chest heaving with rage and sorrow, used the moment to disarm Satyen, pinning him beneath the weight of decades of failure and guilt. The killer’s wails were not those of a monster but of a wounded child who had never healed, echoing through the hollow mansion like a dirge for all the lives shattered by that one robbery decades ago.
When it was over, the silence was unbearable. The police carried away Satyen, his fury extinguished, while Partha’s lifeless body became the final casualty of a case steeped in betrayal and grief. Roshni wept quietly, and Nibedita stood at her father’s side, her hand trembling but firm on his arm. The newspapers would later declare the By-Lane Killer case solved, but for Prabir Roy, there was no triumph in the headlines. He had stopped the killer, yes, but the true victory lay not in vengeance or even justice—it lay in the fragile mending of broken lives. For the first time in years, he looked at his daughter and allowed himself a smile, faint but real. Redemption, he realized, was not in solving crimes that had consumed him for decades, but in finding the courage to rebuild bonds he had nearly destroyed. As they walked away from the mansion, the mist settling once more over the lanes of Shobhabazar, Prabir knew the shadows would always remain, but so too would the light of reconciliation. The last lane had been walked, and though scarred, he was not alone anymore.
End
