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Nabin Mishra
Chapter 1: The Cassette
The rain had returned to Mumbai like an old debt collector—persistent, uninvited, and soaked in memory. Officer Vinayak Rane sat by the rusting grill of his Dadar flat, the yellowed curtains barely swaying as he watched water trickle down the windowpane like the slow bleed of time. His apartment was a museum of silence, its walls lined with worn furniture and an old transistor that hadn’t caught a frequency in years. He smoked his first cigarette of the day at 4 p.m., his back aching from sleep he never remembered falling into. When the doorbell rang—sharp and urgent—it startled him. No one visited anymore, not even his son. On the floor outside lay a plain envelope, damp at the corners. Inside: a single audio cassette, labeled nothing. No sender. No note. Just the dull weight of plastic carrying something heavier than it should.
He rummaged through a dusty cabinet and pulled out his old National Panasonic recorder—stubborn, but still loyal. The tape whirred, clicked, and then hissed. Static scratched the silence, followed by a voice that crawled out from the past. “You remember the boy, don’t you? Worli Sea Face. March 1994. His name was Javed Mistry.” Rane froze. The name was unfamiliar, yet something in his stomach twisted. The voice continued, low and deliberate, like a confession rehearsed too many times. “It wasn’t a clean shoot. You staged it. Or were made to. Either way, the bullet that killed him had your signature.” Rane’s hand hovered over the pause button but didn’t press it. “Find the file, Rane. Before they find you.” The tape ended abruptly, the dead air heavier than the voice itself. For a full minute, he stared at the recorder, hearing only the tick of his ancient wall clock and the storm pressing against the city.
He poured himself a drink—cheap whisky, burnt at the edges—and lit another cigarette. The name kept circling in his mind like a vulture: Javed Mistry. The shootout at Worli Sea Face was twenty years ago, and dozens had died under similar “encounters.” He couldn’t remember this one. Or perhaps, didn’t want to. A part of him had long buried the details—faces, names, screams behind police tape and typewritten justifications. But this… this was different. Someone wanted him to dig. Or perhaps, someone wanted to bury him deeper. He stepped out onto the narrow balcony, Mumbai below him humming with sirens and puddles, the city never quite asleep. Somewhere, in a forgotten file, a truth waited. And for the first time in years, Rane felt it: not fear, not guilt, but the sharp cold flicker of unfinished business.
Chapter 2: Files Never Closed
The next morning, Rane sat hunched over his old steel trunk, the key trembling slightly between his fingers. The smell of rust and mothballs rose as he opened it, revealing a world forgotten—yellowing case files, outdated cartridges, blood-stained press clippings, and cassette tapes wrapped in plastic like relics from a war museum. Each one bore a date, a name, or a scribbled alias. He sorted through the folders like flipping pages of a darker scripture, searching for anything—any trace of a Javed Mistry. Nothing. He tapped his fingers on the edge of the trunk, that name gnawing like a bad tooth. Somewhere, buried in this archive of sanctioned violence, there had to be a lie wearing the uniform of truth. He pulled out a manila envelope marked “Worli, March ’94,” but the papers inside were too clean, too few—almost like someone had scrubbed it before storing it. The file had only three sheets: location, operation time, and the term “confirmed neutralization.” No name. No photo. Just a faint coffee ring on the last page and a missing signature where his should have been.
Across town, Inspector Shalini Deshmukh sat in her Maruti Gypsy outside Rane’s building, her eyes scanning the second-floor balcony through streaked wipers. She was given no explanation—just an order from DCP Jadhav: “Keep an eye on the old man. Quietly.” She had heard stories about Officer Rane, of course. Every junior officer did. He was the myth of the early ’90s—one bullet justice, silent files, a force within the force. But this Rane was just another faded badge, crumpled and shut away like his apartment. She didn’t understand why they cared now. She saw him step out into the rain with an umbrella, his frame heavy but his steps steady. She started the engine and followed from a careful distance. Rane took a left onto the arterial road, then disappeared into the old quarters of Mazgaon.
Rane entered Maria D’Souza’s bar through the rear, brushing past broken neon and cracked tile. It had changed since he last came—less smoke, more silence. Maria stood behind the counter, older now but still fierce-eyed, polishing glasses like she was sanding down memory. She raised a brow. “Didn’t expect to see you again, Vinayak.” He didn’t waste time. “Javed Mistry. Worli. March ’94.” She froze, then placed the glass down slowly. “You’re walking into an old fire, Rane. That name… some of us made sure it disappeared.” He leaned in. “I want it back.” Maria sighed, the weight of years on her voice. “Some ghosts don’t want resurrection. That shootout—if you even want to call it that—wasn’t yours. It was someone else’s script. You were just made to fire the last act.” Rane felt the words lodge in his chest like cold iron. As he turned to leave, Maria added, “If you go looking for that boy, others will come looking for you.” Outside, the rain had lightened, but the city seemed darker.
Chapter 3: The Boy With the Red Umbrella
The neighborhood near Worli Sea Face had changed. Glass towers now loomed where old chawls once leaned against each other like tired men. But some streets refused to forget, and Rane followed them like a scent trail. The sea hissed beyond the barricades, and a salted wind slapped his coat as he stood where the report claimed the encounter had taken place. A shuttered paan shop still stood at the corner, faded red paint peeling like scabs. He watched, trying to summon a memory that wouldn’t come. Then he noticed the beggar by the bus stop—a shriveled man wrapped in plastic, a battered harmonium beside him, a white film over one eye. Rane approached, offered a cigarette. The man lit it shakily and then spoke without prompting, as if waiting years to do so. “There was a boy. Red umbrella. He ran this way. They caught him. He was crying. Said he didn’t do anything. Then a van came. Police van. He was pushed in. After that… no one saw him again.” Rane asked, “Name?” The man coughed. “Javed. Mistry, I think. Lived with his mother. Room number sixteen, Gulzar Building, behind the mosque.” Rane stood still, hearing the waves and his own blood pounding like sirens.
The narrow lane behind the mosque led to Gulzar Building, an old four-storey tenement now covered in satellite dishes and cracked plaster. Rane climbed the stairs, the walls close, the years closer. Room 16 was locked, but the neighbor across opened her door. A young woman with a sleeping child in her arms looked him up and down. “That room’s been empty twenty years. His mother went mad after he died. Screamed for days. Then left. Police came once. Took her somewhere.” Rane thanked her, stepped back into the corridor, and felt something stir inside him—not guilt, but the cold sting of forgotten responsibility. The encounter had taken place. But he didn’t remember Javed. Had his name been erased from the file? Or from Rane’s own memory? He sat on the stairs, lit a cigarette, and replayed the tape in his mind: “It wasn’t a clean shoot.” He had believed every bullet he fired had justice behind it. Now, one shot lingered like a question with no answer.
That night, he took a long detour home, instincts honed from decades of being both predator and prey. Something was off. The same silver Ambassador car appeared three times in three different streets—too slow, too careful. He stopped at a red signal, glanced in the rear-view mirror, and saw it again, headlights dimmed. When he turned left suddenly into a lane near Shivaji Park, the car vanished, slipping into the fog of the night. He waited. Nothing. Someone was watching, but not ready to confront. Back in his apartment, he poured another drink, stared at the file again, and circled the only legible note on the last page: “Report signed by Officer-in-Charge: V. Rane.” But he never remembered signing it. The cassette sat on his desk like a wound that hadn’t stopped bleeding.
Chapter 4: A Son’s Shadow
Sameer Rane sat in the cluttered office of City Pulse Weekly, the ceiling fan rattling above and the aroma of cutting chai wafting from a glass on his desk. The cassette lay in front of him, its plastic casing dull under the flickering tube light. His editor, a balding man named Pinto, had handed it to him that morning with a smirk. “From an anonymous source. Said it connects to your father’s glorious past. Thought you’d like a personal stake in your next feature.” Sameer hadn’t spoken to his father in years, not since the night he stormed out of the house after accusing him of being a murderer with a badge. He clicked the tape into the old player Pinto kept for retro interviews. The hiss began, and then the voice: slow, deliberate, damning. “Javed Mistry. Worli. March 1994. You staged it. Or were made to.” Sameer froze. The voice wasn’t his father’s, but the name, the location, the date—all matched a file he’d just started investigating. He let the tape play twice. By the end, he felt something between nausea and rage. Not just at the voice. Not just at what the tape claimed. But at the thought that maybe, just maybe, his father had lied all along.
Meanwhile, Officer Rane sat with a steaming vada pav on a bench near Marine Lines, reading through his torn leather notebook, cross-referencing dates from the Mistry file with names of officers on duty back then. One name kept appearing: Anil Jadhav, his old subordinate. Now a Deputy Commissioner, Jadhav had moved quickly up the ladder after Rane’s retirement. Rane remembered him as smart, too clean for comfort, the kind who kept his boots polished while walking through blood. Rane made a call to an old constable, now posted in records. The voice on the other end hesitated but eventually relented. “Sir… that file, it’s not complete. Pages are missing. Some redaction was ordered years after the incident. Signed off by Jadhav himself.” Rane’s jaw tightened. Someone had swept behind him, carefully, and left him holding a phantom gun.
Sameer sat at his small rented flat in Bandra, spreading out articles, old reports, and an enlarged photocopy of his father’s commendation photo. He circled the name “Javed Mistry” in red ink, then connected it to other similar names—low-profile deaths marked as encounters, all from the same year. A pattern emerged, and his fingers trembled slightly. His father’s name was on more than half the reports. But as he studied deeper, he noticed something strange—handwriting inconsistencies in the signatures, reports signed days after the encounter dates, blurry Xeroxes where photos should have been. It wasn’t just dirty. It was doctored. And now, he had a choice—publish and burn his father’s name for good, or dig further and see if the monster he hated was built, not born. Outside, the rain began again, washing the glass in rhythmic pulses, as if the city itself had a conscience trying to come clean.
Chapter 5: Yusuf’s Return
The Dongri café was the kind of place where time gathered dust. Its cracked Formica tables, flickering tube lights, and the constant stench of stale tea gave it the aura of forgotten deals and remembered debts. Rane stepped inside quietly, eyes sweeping the dim room. There he was—Yusuf “Tiger” Khan, the man whose name once sent panic through the underworld, now hunched at a corner table wearing a woolen cap and oversized sunglasses. His beard had turned white, but his smirk hadn’t aged a day. “Officer Rane,” he drawled, swirling sugar into his tea, “I thought you were dead or rotting in some pension line.” Rane sat without a word. Tiger’s grin widened. “So… the past has started whispering, hasn’t it?” Rane cut in coldly, “Javed Mistry. You were around in ’94. I need answers.” Tiger leaned back, tapping a finger on the table. “That boy wasn’t a gangster. He was a whisper. Too curious. He stumbled into a slum redevelopment file tied to big names. He was marked before you even saw his face. The shootout was theatre. And you, Rane… you were handed a script.”
Rane’s fingers clenched on the edge of the table. “Why now? Why resurface after all these years?” Tiger shrugged. “Because the city never forgets. Only sleeps. The people behind it? They’ve moved up. Ministers, developers, even cops. But someone out there wants the tape to speak before we all go deaf. You’re being tested, Vinayak. Whether you’ll bury the ghost or let it howl.” He slid a slip of paper across the table—an address in Byculla and a name: Abdul Farooq, a municipal clerk who once filed the clearance for the building where Mistry vanished. “Find him. Before they do.” Rane stood, pocketed the note, and walked out, knowing full well he had just made himself visible in a game that preferred shadows. Outside, a black Santro idled across the street, headlights dim. It drove off the moment he looked toward it.
Sameer’s investigation was circling the same drain. At the City Pulse office, he had just discovered a partial scan of an FIR from March 1994. The original witness statement—blurred in the police copy—was clean on the scan. It mentioned a name scratched out in ink: Tiger Khan. He stared at it, stunned. Why would the police redact a witness connected to the very gangs they claimed to be erasing? He called Pinto. “I need access to the redevelopment files for the 1994 slum demolition project near Worli Sea Face.” Pinto was skeptical. “That’s old concrete, kid. Buried under new buildings.” “Exactly,” Sameer replied, “and someone bled to build them.”
Back in Rane’s flat, the phone rang—an unknown number. A calm voice said, “Byculla will be closed to you after tonight. Don’t chase ghosts, Officer. You’ll end up one.” The line went dead. Rane opened the trunk again, stared at his revolver for the first time in years. It still gleamed beneath the dust. The streets had changed, but the bullets hadn’t. He slipped the revolver into his coat and stepped out into the night, into the city that had never really forgiven him.
Chapter 7: The Last Encounter
The printing house in Antop Hill had long since closed its doors, its signage faded and its shutters rusted shut, but Rane and Shalini stood before it just after sunrise, waiting for the man who had agreed to meet them. Prakash Devkar, once a junior typesetter, now worked at a grocery store nearby and had answered Rane’s quiet query the night before. He arrived trembling, eyes darting at every passing scooter. “I shouldn’t be here,” he whispered. “They made us print sealed memos, names coded in digits. But that file… the Mistry one… it was unusual. It came twice. First to be printed. Then to be destroyed. Both times from the DCP’s office.” Rane showed him the burned sheet. Devkar pointed at the watermark. “That wasn’t ours. That came later. Someone tried to reprint it as evidence. I think your boy was the one who tried to leak it.” Rane’s lips pressed into a hard line. “Javed.” Devkar nodded, then looked away. “The second order to destroy… it came with a list. Of witnesses. Everyone on it disappeared within two months. I only survived because I ran.” He handed Rane a faded xerox—a notice signed with Jadhav’s initials and an encoded case reference. “This was your last encounter. You didn’t stage it. You were used.”
By noon, Rane stood in the waiting lounge of the Commissioner’s office, staring at his reflection in a dusty trophy case. Anil Jadhav summoned him in without a word, seated behind an opulent desk, his uniform immaculate, his expression unreadable. “Vinayak,” he said, almost warmly. “The past still dragging its nails?” Rane threw the file on the table. “Javed Mistry. You signed it off. I want the truth before I take it public.” Jadhav chuckled, then leaned forward. “You really want to talk about truth? You were a legend because we made you one. You were useful. The face. The weapon. You don’t get to grow a conscience now.” He opened a drawer, pulled out a familiar cassette tape. “We still control the story, Rane. Burn the file. Walk away. Be remembered as a hero. Or… go out as a traitor who killed a kid on false orders.” Rane stared at him, the rage rising slow and steady. “I didn’t sign that file.” “No,” Jadhav said calmly, “but your hand was still on the gun.” For a moment, the two men sat in silence, the city’s muffled sirens echoing in the distance. Rane stood. “Then I’ll make sure the next bullet is the last.”
Back in his apartment, Rane found Sameer waiting at the door. No anger. Just a tired sadness in his son’s eyes. “I listened to the tape,” Sameer said. “All of it. You weren’t supposed to be the trigger. You were the silence that came after.” Rane let him in, both men unsure how to fill the air between them. Shalini joined them moments later, carrying a thin folder. “Someone from within sent this to my station anonymously.” Inside was a document labeled “Code-23: Project Closure List.” At the top: Javed Mistry. At the bottom: Vinayak Rane. Shalini looked up. “They’re going to erase you next.” Rane lit a cigarette with shaking fingers, the smoke rising like the last breath of an old oath. “Then let’s make some noise before they can.”
Chapter 8: The Last File
The night was unforgiving, with a wet mist cloaking the narrow alleys of Mazgaon. Officer Rane stood at the threshold of an abandoned warehouse—the same one from the shootout file marked “CR/212/93.” The cassette had brought him full circle. His hands trembled, not with fear but with the weight of consequence. Inside, the shadows whispered history. Footsteps echoed. Behind him, a figure emerged—Inspector Mhatre. Young, sharp, and once Rane’s biggest critic, Mhatre now carried a tinge of respect in his eyes. “It’s true, then?” Mhatre asked, voice taut. Rane didn’t answer. Instead, he walked to a rusted metal locker buried under crates, cracked it open, and pulled out a blood-stained police diary—the real last file. The entries inside were damning. The 1993 encounter, hailed as Rane’s cleanest hit, was not just staged but ordered by higher-ups as a political clean-up. Innocents had died. “You can leak it,” Rane said, handing over the diary. “Or bury it deeper than I ever could. Your call.”
Mhatre stared at the diary as if it burned in his hands. “And you?” he asked. Rane exhaled slowly, lighting his last cigarette. “I’m just an old cop trying to die a little clean.” As he turned to leave, another figure emerged—Shammi Pujari, the now-forgotten gangster who had faked his death in that very raid. Gun in hand, a smug smile on his face. “Rane-saab, you just couldn’t let the past rot,” Shammi hissed. A flash, a shot, and chaos. Mhatre dove for cover, bullets flying in the gloom. Rane took one in the shoulder but stood his ground. Decades of instinct surged through his veins. One last dance with death. He fired back, every shot a confession. The silence afterward was broken only by the whistle of wind through broken windows. Shammi lay dead, again—this time for real. Mhatre crouched beside the bleeding Rane. “Ambulance?” Rane shook his head. “Just burn the file. Or don’t. But make sure someone knows what happened here.”
By morning, news broke of a gangland shootout in an abandoned Mazgaon warehouse. No mention of Rane. No mention of the file. Just whispers. But somewhere in a sealed envelope, on Mhatre’s desk, sat a confession—a truth carved in blood and tape. Rane was never seen again. Some say he took a ferry and disappeared into the Konkan coast. Others believed he died that night, finally facing the ghosts he created. But in the lanes of Mumbai, his legend shifted. No longer just the shadowed figure of justice and bullets, but a man who once chose truth over legacy. And in a locked cabinet in the Crime Branch, under a file marked “unsolved,” the story remained—a noir relic of a city that forgets fast and forgives slow.
