Arjun Malhotra
The Broken Lock
The house stood at the far end of Chitpur Road like a stubborn relic, refusing to collapse even as the rest of north Kolkata modernized and decayed in equal measure. Its high arched windows were shattered, its stucco walls streaked with moss, and weeds sprouted in wild abandon from the cracks in its courtyard. The demolition crew had arrived at dawn with their rust-colored machines, but Rohan had been there before them, notebook in hand, his camera dangling from his neck, watching as the first hammer struck the gates of the house.
Freelance assignments were rarely glamorous, and he had taken this one with little enthusiasm. “A story about an old mansion coming down,” the editor of the cultural supplement had said, her voice trailing off as if she didn’t believe there was much of a story in it at all. But she knew the demolition had already stirred some protests from local heritage activists, and someone had to file the piece. That someone was Rohan.
He had stepped inside through the half-broken doorframe, ignoring the warning shouts of the workers. The air smelled of damp wood, pigeon droppings, and a strange metallic tang, as though the house itself had been bleeding rust for years. Shafts of light filtered through broken tiles in the roof, revealing floating motes of dust that moved like reluctant spirits.
“Two hours, no more,” the foreman barked. “After that, we start with the machines.”
Rohan nodded absently and wandered deeper into the house. His footsteps echoed against marble floors worn smooth by decades of absent feet. In the grand hall stood a wooden staircase, its banisters carved with grotesque lions, their jaws open in silent roars. Portraits hung crooked on the walls—stern men in waistcoats, women with jewel-studded hair. Their painted eyes seemed to follow him. He jotted notes in his pad, but none of it struck him as particularly interesting.
It was only when he entered the back corridor, a place choked with debris, that he noticed something unusual. A plank of the floor had come loose, lifted slightly above its frame as though pried open by force. He crouched, pushed aside the rubble, and ran his fingers along the wood. Beneath it was an iron handle.
The handle belonged to a small hatch. With a little effort, he wrenched it open, the rusted hinges screeching like an animal in pain. Below, in a hollow compartment lined with brick, lay a box no bigger than a typewriter case. The lock was already broken, its edges bent inward as if someone had once tried to force it open but abandoned the attempt midway. Dust caked its surface, but the air inside the compartment smelled faintly of oil—as if the box had not been completely forgotten.
Rohan hesitated. He knew he should call one of the workers, or at least photograph it in place. But curiosity had already taken root, and he pulled the box out, brushing away the dirt. With a sharp tug, the broken lock gave way. The lid creaked open, revealing a bundle of papers bound in leather.
It was a ledger.
The leather was cracked with age, its surface flaking at the touch, but the pages inside were surprisingly well preserved. Neat handwriting filled the columns—rows of names, amounts, dates written in a hand that belonged to another century. He flipped through the first few pages, his pulse quickening. Some entries were straightforward—transactions of money, shipments, expenses—but others were coded, cryptic symbols replacing words, whole sections scribbled out in thick strokes of ink. At the top of the first page, one name was written clearly, repeated again and again.
N.C. Dutta.
The name rang no bell, yet there was something deliberate in the way it appeared, as if it were a signature of ownership, or perhaps an accusation.
He snapped a photograph with his camera, then quickly closed the ledger and slid it into his bag. A sharp creak echoed from the other end of the corridor. Rohan stiffened. He was certain he had heard footsteps.
“Anyone there?” he called. His voice sounded too loud in the emptiness.
No answer. Only the muted thud of machinery starting up outside, the demolition crew growing impatient. He told himself it was nothing—just a rat, or the groaning of the old timbers. But a chill ran down his spine nonetheless.
By the time he emerged into the sunlight of the courtyard, his bag weighed heavier than its actual contents. He walked quickly past the foreman, who was arguing with a city inspector, and out through the gates into the noise of Chitpur Road. The traffic roared like a river around him, and still he felt the pressure of unseen eyes.
That evening, back in his one-room apartment near Lake Market, Rohan spread the ledger on his desk under the weak glow of a table lamp. He poured himself a cup of cheap tea and began to read more carefully. The entries dated back to 1915. Names of merchants, zamindars, and trading companies appeared beside columns of rupee figures and British pounds. Certain shipments were marked with a small star—tobacco, silk, jute—but others were disguised: “cloth” written in quotation marks, or “gifts” marked with strange symbols. He jotted the details in his notebook, his journalist’s instinct prickling. This was no ordinary household ledger; it was a record of something larger, something dangerous.
One page caught his attention more than the rest. The entry read:
March 17, 1916 – To N.C. Dutta, disbursed Rs. 10,000 for “services rendered.” Witnessed by…
The name of the witness had been violently scratched out, the paper torn nearly through. Beneath the tear, faint letters remained, but not enough to be read clearly. Rohan traced the indentations with his fingertips, feeling the anger behind the stroke of the pen.
Outside, the city hummed with evening sounds—the bell of the ice-cream seller, the rattle of a tram, the muffled strains of a puja procession somewhere in the distance. Yet in his room the silence deepened, pressing in around him. He felt as though he had opened a door not meant to be opened, and something was now waiting on the threshold.
He leaned back in his chair and lit a cigarette, trying to steady his nerves. The smoke curled above him, pale and fragile. He told himself it was just an old ledger, a curiosity, nothing more. But the image of that scratched-out name refused to leave his mind.
Somewhere in the night, beyond his shuttered window, a soft knock echoed against the wooden frame. He froze, cigarette burning down between his fingers. He waited. The knock came again, faint but deliberate.
Rohan did not move. His eyes drifted to the leather-bound ledger lying open on the desk. For the first time in years, he felt afraid of a book.
The Name in Ink
Rohan barely slept that night. Every time his eyes closed, he heard again the sound of that soft, deliberate knock against his window, like a finger pressing insistently on the edge of his fear. When at last he dragged himself to the shutters in the early hours, there was nothing outside but the waning moon over the rooftops, the alley below silent except for a stray dog nosing through a heap of refuse. No footprints, no figures, no sign that anyone had been there.
And yet, the ledger remained on his desk, heavy with implication, as though it had conjured its own guardians in the dark.
By morning, his weariness had sharpened into resolve. He knew how easily one could get lost in superstition in this city—Kolkata thrived on ghost stories, every crumbling mansion had its whispering shadows. But Rohan was a journalist, and ink on paper was his weapon against mystery. The name written at the top of those pages, repeated like a signature of power—N.C. Dutta—was his first lead.
He slung his bag across his shoulder and walked briskly to College Street, the sun barely above the skyline. The air smelled of fresh newsprint and frying kachoris, and the morning crowds swarmed like an impatient tide. Here, amid the chaos of second-hand bookstalls and hawkers, lay the city’s best archive—the dust-clogged shelves of the Indian National Library annex, and the smaller private collections of rare-book sellers who seemed to know the city’s past better than its present.
Inside the reading room of the library, Rohan submitted his request slips with the impatience of a man chasing a whisper. The clerk returned after half an hour with bound volumes of The Statesman and Amrita Bazar Patrika from the years 1915 and 1916. The newspapers crackled as he turned the pages, their ink faded to a sepia ghost.
At first, the articles seemed ordinary—reports of British troop movements during the War, protests by Indian workers, advertisements for imported gramophones. But then he found it. A small column buried in the March 1916 edition of The Statesman:
“Prominent businessman Narayan Chandra Dutta missing since last week. Last seen near Burrabazar. Associates report unusual financial dealings prior to disappearance. Police investigation ongoing.”
Rohan’s breath caught. There it was—N.C. Dutta, not merely a name but a man who had lived, transacted, and vanished in this very city.
He dug deeper. Other editions carried brief updates: rumors of debts, whispers of smuggling, speculation that Dutta had fled to Rangoon. But no resolution. By June that year, the story vanished from the press, as if the man himself had been erased.
The ledger on Rohan’s desk was not a curiosity, then. It was evidence, a fragment of a life abruptly cut off. The scratched-out witness name suddenly seemed more sinister. Who had tried to bury the truth?
He scribbled notes furiously until his pen tore the paper. His pulse hammered with the thrill of a discovery. This was no demolition puff piece; this was a forgotten mystery with teeth. If he could dig it out, it could be the kind of story that made his career.
On his way out of the library, he stopped at one of the smaller stalls on College Street. The owner, a wiry old man with thick glasses, glanced at the scrap of paper Rohan slid across the counter—N.C. Dutta, 1915–1916, Burrabazar. The bookseller frowned, muttered, then shuffled into the back of his stall. He returned with a yellowing booklet, a registry of traders in Calcutta published in 1914.
“There,” the man said, tapping a name with a nicotine-stained finger. “Narayan Chandra Dutta. Merchant. Address: 24 Strand Road. Specializes in textiles and jute.”
The address pulled at Rohan’s imagination: a godown by the river, thick with the scent of jute and damp burlap, where whispers of rebellion and smuggling might have passed from hand to hand. He tucked the booklet reference into his notes, thanked the man, and stepped out into the sunlight.
It was then he noticed him.
Across the street, beyond the tramlines, a figure leaned casually against a lamppost. Dark glasses, a newspaper folded under one arm, his posture too studied. For a moment their eyes met—or so it seemed, though the glasses hid any expression. Rohan felt the hairs rise on his arms. He turned abruptly and merged into the crowd, but when he glanced back a minute later, the man was gone.
The paranoia from the night before surged back, bitter in his throat. He quickened his pace, half-running through the lanes until the clamor of the city swallowed his unease.
That evening, in the safety of his apartment, he spread his findings beside the ledger. The neat rows of ink and numbers now had flesh, a man’s name, an address. He began to sketch a timeline: Dutta’s prominence, his dealings, the disappearance. But the missing page of the ledger gnawed at him, a void where the most damning name might have been. He thought of the scratched-out witness, the angry stroke of ink. Who was that silent presence, erased but not forgotten?
The knock came again.
Not on his window this time, but at his door. Firm, measured, unmistakably human. His heart thudded. He set his pen down, rose quietly, and pressed his eye to the peephole.
The corridor was empty.
He waited, holding his breath, the silence expanding until it became unbearable. When at last he opened the door a crack, the hallway lay deserted. Only a folded scrap of paper sat on the floor.
He bent to pick it up. The paper smelled faintly of smoke. Unfolded, it contained only five words, written in neat, deliberate script:
“Leave it alone, Mr. R.”
His fingers tightened around the note. Whoever had written it knew his name.
He closed the door quickly, bolted it, and slumped back against the wall. The ledger remained on his desk, silent but accusing. Outside, the city moved with indifferent rhythm—the tram bells clanging, the calls of street vendors—but in his room, the air was taut with menace.
Rohan realized with a clarity that chilled him: the ledger was not forgotten. It was watched. And whoever had been watching did not want him to read another page.
But he also knew himself too well. The note was not a warning; it was a challenge. And he would not walk away from it.
The Man in the Corridor
The note lay on his desk all night, its five words echoing in Rohan’s mind like a refrain he could not shut out. Leave it alone, Mr. R. Each time he tried to work, his eyes returned to it. Each time he tried to sleep, he dreamed of faceless men pressing notes into his hand, whispering threats from darkened alleys.
By morning, exhaustion had frayed his nerves into raw wires. He smoked through half a pack of cigarettes, the ashtray brimming by the time he dressed and locked his apartment door. He told himself he should take the note to the police, but instinct stopped him. The police in this city were not to be trusted with fragile things like truth. They would shrug, dismiss it as a prank, maybe confiscate the ledger, and that would be the end.
He wasn’t ready for the end.
Instead, he tucked the ledger into his bag once more and headed for Burrabazar. If N.C. Dutta’s name had been rooted anywhere, it was here, among the jute merchants and warehouses along Strand Road. He wanted to see the building, the place where Dutta’s ledger had once belonged.
Burrabazar in midmorning was chaos made flesh. Handcarts piled with gunny sacks rattled over potholes. Porters shouted, cows ambled lazily across the road, and the smell of spices, sweat, and river mud mingled in the air. Amid this cacophony stood 24 Strand Road, its facade a mix of grandeur and decay. The plaster peeled in patches, exposing brickwork like raw wounds. A faded signboard still clung to its gate: Dutta & Sons — Textile Merchants.
The building was locked, its shutters rusted, but through the gaps Rohan glimpsed the dim interior of a godown, cobwebbed and silent. He snapped a few photographs. The building seemed more mausoleum than warehouse, a tombstone for a man erased from the city’s memory.
“Looking for someone?” a voice rasped.
Rohan turned sharply. An old watchman sat on a stool nearby, his eyes narrowed under the brim of a torn cap.
“This place still belongs to anyone?” Rohan asked.
The watchman spat a stream of red betel juice into the gutter. “Belongs to ghosts, maybe. No one’s touched it in years. You want trouble, poke your nose here. Otherwise—better to walk away.”
Rohan pressed gently. “Do you remember Dutta? The merchant who owned this?”
The old man chuckled without mirth. “Everyone remembers Dutta. And everyone forgets him too. He vanished before my father’s time. Some said he cheated the British. Some said he funded rebels. Others said he drowned in the river with stones tied to his ankles. Who knows? Only God and the Hooghly.” He leaned forward, his voice dropping. “Best advice? Don’t ask too many questions. Questions dig graves.”
Rohan thanked him and walked on, though the words burrowed into his mind. Questions dig graves. He couldn’t help himself; he was already digging.
That evening, he met his friend Kabir at a café near College Street. Kabir, a fellow journalist with the easy cynicism of a man too familiar with city politics, listened silently as Rohan laid out the story—the ledger, the disappearance, the note.
Kabir frowned. “This is bigger than you think. If the note came to your door, someone knows where you live. Someone’s watching every move. Don’t get heroic, Rohan. Drop it.”
“And let the truth rot?” Rohan shot back.
Kabir sighed. “Truth doesn’t rot. It gets buried. And sometimes it’s better buried.”
Rohan shook his head. He had already felt the hook in his skin; there was no pulling out now.
When they left the café, dusk had draped the city in soft indigo. The tramlines gleamed faintly, and the lampposts blinked to life one by one. Kabir waved goodbye and melted into the crowd. Rohan turned into the lane leading to his apartment block.
That was when he saw him.
The figure from College Street—the man in dark glasses, posture too studied—was leaning in the shadows near the staircase landing. Rohan’s steps faltered. The man did not move, but his stillness was more menacing than motion.
“Who are you?” Rohan demanded, his voice steadier than he felt.
The man tilted his head slightly, like an animal considering its prey. Then he stepped forward into the dim light. He was tall, broad-shouldered, his jawline sharp, his expression unreadable beneath the dark glasses. His lips curved into the faintest of smiles, and in his hand gleamed a small metal object—a cigarette lighter, flicked open with deliberate slowness. The flame danced briefly, then died.
Rohan’s heart pounded. He took a step back. “If you have something to say, say it.”
The man did not answer. Instead, he let the lighter snap shut and slipped it into his pocket. He turned, walked down the corridor, and disappeared into the night without a word.
For several minutes Rohan remained rooted to the spot, the echo of footsteps fading. When at last he entered his apartment, he bolted the door, his hands trembling. He pulled the ledger from his bag and stared at it as though it might answer his fear.
But the ledger offered only silence, the black ink frozen in neat lines.
Sleep was impossible. He sat awake long into the night, replaying the encounter in his mind. Why had the man followed him? Why reveal himself only to leave? It felt like a message: We are here. We are watching. Don’t forget it.
At dawn, a knock came at his door—sharp, impatient. He flinched, but it was only the newspaper boy, tossing the morning edition inside. Rohan picked it up, his nerves still raw. The headline made him freeze.
“Local Merchant Dies in Tram Accident Near Esplanade.”
The article was brief, but the details were chilling. The merchant—Mukul Sen—had been crushed beneath the wheels of a tram late last night. Eyewitnesses claimed he had been pushed. The name jolted Rohan’s memory. Mukul Sen had been the man he had arranged to meet that very night, a contact in Burrabazar who had promised more information about the Dutta family.
Rohan sat down heavily, the paper trembling in his hands. The message was clear now. This wasn’t superstition or paranoia. Someone was tying loose ends, cutting throats to protect the silence around the ledger.
And he was next on the list.
But instead of fear alone, a strange exhilaration surged through him. The story was alive, bleeding in real time, and he was at its heart. He lit another cigarette, exhaled into the dim morning light, and whispered to the ledger on his desk:
“They’ll have to kill me before I stop.”
The Historian’s Secret
For two days, Rohan moved like a man in a fever, haunted by the tramline death of Mukul Sen. Each cigarette burned down to ash before he realized he’d lit it. He checked the street outside his apartment obsessively, scanning for shadows that might be watching. The ledger lay on his desk, half-open, as if daring him to touch it again. Each time he did, he traced the scratched-out name on the March 1916 entry, and each time he wondered whether Sen had died for knowing what he knew—or for almost telling him.
But fear did not stop him; it sharpened him. If anything, the threat had only deepened his resolve. Mukul had been silenced. Rohan refused to be.
There was one man he trusted to interpret the past, a man who had lived inside Kolkata’s archives long enough to know where its skeletons were buried: Professor Satyajit Banerjee.
Banerjee was a retired historian from Presidency University, a man known in academic circles for his work on Bengal’s underground networks during the British Raj. For the city’s younger journalists, he was something of a myth—always seen wandering the marble steps of the National Library, or sipping tea at the Indian Coffee House, his white beard stained faintly with nicotine, his eyes as sharp as scalpels.
Rohan arranged to meet him at the professor’s house near Bhawanipore. It was a modest two-story dwelling, its walls lined with bougainvillea vines. The inside smelled of old books and dust, as though time itself had stopped there. The professor greeted him with a slow smile, ushered him in, and poured tea into delicate porcelain cups.
“You look restless, my boy,” Banerjee said, settling into an armchair. “What is it that you’ve unearthed this time? Another scandal in City Hall?”
Rohan hesitated, then unzipped his bag and placed the ledger on the low table. The professor’s eyes widened slightly, but he masked his reaction quickly, reaching instead for his spectacles. He flipped open the cover with a care that suggested reverence—or dread.
“Where did you find this?” Banerjee asked softly.
“In a mansion on Chitpur Road. It was hidden under the floor.”
The professor’s fingers lingered on the brittle paper. He turned the pages slowly, scanning the names, the figures. When he reached the entry for March 1916, his jaw tightened. “Ah. So it surfaces again.”
“What do you mean—again?” Rohan leaned forward.
Banerjee set the book down gently, as though afraid of waking something dangerous inside it. “This ledger belonged to a network that operated in the shadows of British Calcutta. Merchants, moneylenders, smugglers—they passed funds quietly, financing both sides of the struggle. Some money supported the nationalist underground, others lined the pockets of collaborators. Narayan Chandra Dutta was not merely a businessman. He was a broker of loyalty. And loyalty in those days was more volatile than gunpowder.”
Rohan’s pulse quickened. “And the scratched-out name?”
The professor exhaled a long plume of smoke from his pipe. “That, my boy, is the question people have died for.”
Rohan stiffened. “You mean Mukul Sen?”
Banerjee’s eyes flickered. “So you’ve already seen blood. Then you must understand—what you hold is not a relic. It is dynamite. Entire families still live under the shadow of those names. Fortunes were built on treachery and blood. If the ledger is exposed, the balance of power in this city could shift, even a century later.”
“Then tell me who erased the witness,” Rohan pressed. “You know, don’t you?”
The professor leaned back, tapping ash from his pipe into a tray. His silence stretched until it felt unbearable. Finally, he said, “Some knowledge is a curse. To name that witness is to summon ghosts that still have teeth. You are young—you do not know the price of such knowledge. Leave it.”
Rohan slammed his fist lightly against the table. “I can’t. Someone warned me to stop. Someone killed Sen. That ledger is my responsibility now.”
Banerjee studied him, his expression unreadable. Then he rose and crossed to a shelf stacked with yellowing journals. He pulled one out and handed it over. “Read this when you’re alone. It’s my research on underground finance in Bengal, 1910–1920. There are hints in there—clues that may guide you. But I warn you, Rohan—if you follow this path, you’ll find not history, but war.”
When Rohan stood to leave, the professor placed a hand on his shoulder. His grip was surprisingly firm. “If you insist on continuing, trust no one. Not the police, not even your friends. And never, ever walk the streets alone at night.”
The warning stayed with him long after he left the quiet house and stepped into the roar of Gariahat traffic. Trust no one. The words echoed like a curse.
That evening, he sat at his desk with Banerjee’s journal spread open beside the ledger. The professor’s meticulous handwriting described secret accounts, coded entries, and the shadow economies that had thrived under colonial rule. One passage chilled him:
“Certain ledgers contain entries that, if revealed, would condemn the descendants of men still powerful today. Their wealth was laundered through betrayal. Those who guard these secrets do so with blood.”
Rohan rubbed his eyes, exhaustion gnawing at him. He flipped back to the ledger and found himself staring at Dutta’s name again, repeated in steady ink. Who had this man been—a patriot funding rebellion, or a traitor selling information? And why had he vanished so completely?
The night outside was still, but his nerves remained taut. He poured himself another cup of tea, tried to steady his hands. At half past midnight, when the city had grown quieter, he heard it again—the sound of footsteps in the corridor.
Slow, deliberate, unhurried.
Rohan froze, every instinct on edge. He snatched the ledger off his desk and shoved it into his bag. Then, heart hammering, he crossed to the door and pressed his ear against it. The footsteps stopped. The silence was so complete he could hear his own breath rasping.
When he finally summoned the courage to peer through the peephole, the corridor was empty. But the silence felt staged, like an actor waiting offstage for the right cue.
And then—faint, almost imperceptible—a whisper slithered through the wood of the door:
“Stop digging.”
Rohan stumbled back, his chest tight with fear. He grabbed the nearest heavy object—a brass lamp—and held it as a weapon, his eyes fixed on the door. Minutes passed. No knock came, no footsteps retreated. Whoever had whispered was gone.
But the words clung to him. Stop digging.
He sat at his desk until dawn, the ledger clutched in his hands, and realized the professor had been right. He wasn’t uncovering history. He was walking into a war still being fought in the shadows of Kolkata.
The Missing Page
Dawn broke pale and reluctant, as though the city itself hesitated to begin another day. Rohan hadn’t slept. The whisper at his door lingered like a taste of iron in his mouth, sour and undeniable. He moved through his apartment in silence, pulling the curtains wider to let the first light seep in. The ledger sat on the desk, its cracked leather cover swollen in the damp. It seemed alive, breathing with secrets.
He brewed tea strong enough to scald his throat and sat staring at the March 1916 entry yet again. The scratched-out witness—the angry strokes cutting across the page—were more violent than words. Whoever had erased the name had not simply wanted it hidden. They had wanted it obliterated.
Rohan remembered something Professor Banerjee had said: Some knowledge is a curse. But curses only worked if you feared them. He pulled a magnifying glass from a drawer, the kind he used for poring over old manuscripts, and angled it over the paper. The light caught faint grooves in the parchment—indentations left by the original pen before it was scraped away. Letters emerged like ghosts under the glass: the curve of an “S,” the faint tail of an “h.” He strained, tracing the fragments again and again until his eyes ached.
The name was not whole, but the remnants suggested something like “Sh—ra.” Not enough to be certain, but enough to haunt him.
He closed the ledger and lit another cigarette. The smoke curled upward, fragile and insistent, just as the thought coiled in his head: maybe the missing page held the answer. He had noticed it before—the torn stub where an entire sheet had been ripped out. If the erased witness was one threat, the missing page was a greater one. What name had been too dangerous even to leave half-erased?
His phone buzzed, startling him. A message from an unknown number:
“The ledger is incomplete. You want the missing page? Strand Road, old warehouse by the river. Midnight. Come alone.”
Rohan read it three times, pulse hammering. The warehouse—the address tied to Dutta’s business. Whoever sent this knew more than he did. But was it bait? Almost certainly. Still, could he ignore it? He thought of Sen’s body crushed under the tram, of the whisper at his door. Every warning was clear: walk away. Yet every instinct dragged him deeper.
He spent the day pacing his room, checking his phone for follow-up messages, drinking more tea than he could stomach. He called Kabir once, meaning to tell him, but hung up before the line connected. Banerjee’s words echoed: Trust no one.
As the hour approached, he armed himself with nothing more than his notebook, his camera, and the ledger hidden deep in his bag. Midnight found him standing on Strand Road, the river Hooghly a sluggish black ribbon beside him. The air smelled of salt, mud, and engine oil.
The warehouse loomed at the water’s edge, its shutters half-broken, its brick walls tattooed with graffiti. The silence was thick, broken only by the occasional clang of a distant ship. Rohan pushed the door open and stepped inside.
The darkness was almost complete. Shafts of moonlight cut through broken panels in the roof, illuminating stacks of old crates and jute bales. His footsteps echoed as he called out: “Hello? I’m here. Who sent the message?”
No answer. Only the low creak of something shifting in the dark.
He moved cautiously between the crates. His heart pounded. Then, out of the shadows, a woman emerged. She wore a plain white sari, her hair tied back, her eyes sharp as glass. She raised her hand in a gesture of peace.
“You’re Rohan,” she said. Her voice was steady, low. “I was told you had the ledger.”
“Who are you?” he demanded.
“My name is Mira,” she said. “My grandfather worked with Narayan Chandra Dutta. He disappeared the same year. I’ve been searching for that ledger my entire life.”
Rohan narrowed his eyes. “And the message? Was that you?”
She nodded. “I thought you wouldn’t come otherwise. The missing page—it’s real. It was torn out because it carried names that would damn men whose families still run this city. My grandfather tried to keep it safe. He died for it.”
Her gaze was fierce, unflinching. Rohan wanted to believe her. But trust was a currency he no longer carried.
“You expect me to believe you just walked into this?” he asked. “No threats, no shadows following you?”
A faint smile touched her lips. “The shadows follow all of us who dig too deep. The difference is—I don’t scare easily.”
Before Rohan could respond, a sound sliced through the silence—the metallic click of a gun being cocked. From the darkness behind the crates, a man stepped forward. He was tall, broad-shouldered, his dark glasses gleaming even in the moonlight. The same figure who had trailed Rohan for days.
“Nice to see you again, Mr. R,” the man said softly. His voice was smooth, almost amused. “And you brought company.”
Mira stiffened, her eyes darting to the newcomer. “You don’t want to do this,” she hissed.
The man ignored her. His gaze was fixed on Rohan. “You have something that doesn’t belong to you. Hand it over. Now.”
Rohan’s throat went dry. He gripped the strap of his bag tighter. “You mean the ledger?”
“The ledger,” the man said, stepping closer, gun glinting. “And the page.”
“I don’t have the page,” Rohan snapped. “Just this.”
“Then you’re useless.”
The gun lifted. Mira moved instantly, stepping between them, her voice sharp: “If you shoot him here, you’ll never find it. He’s the only one who knows where it is.”
For a moment, silence. The man’s jaw tightened. Then, with a sneer, he lowered the weapon slightly. “Midnight games,” he muttered. “You’ll regret this.” He backed into the shadows and disappeared as suddenly as he had come.
Rohan’s body shook with adrenaline. Mira exhaled, her shoulders dropping.
“You see?” she said quietly. “The missing page is the key. Whoever has it holds the noose around the neck of powerful men. And they will kill to keep it hidden.”
Rohan stared at her, trying to read her truth in her eyes. All he saw was fire.
“Then we find it,” he said.
Blood on the Tramline
The warehouse encounter left Rohan shaken long after he returned to his apartment. He lay awake, Mira’s words gnawing at him: The missing page is the key. She had looked utterly convinced, her gaze unflinching even with a gun trained on them. He wanted to believe her, but belief came at a cost he wasn’t ready to pay. The man with the dark glasses had nearly ended it then and there. Rohan had survived only because Mira had bought him a moment’s reprieve.
When the morning came, he stumbled into the streets with heavy lids and a heavier heart. Kolkata bustled around him as if blind to conspiracies—hawkers shouting over piles of fruit, schoolchildren in blue uniforms trailing their mothers, the tram bell clanging as it rattled past with a lazy inevitability. But Rohan saw it differently now. Each tramline gleaming in the sun seemed like a blade laid across the city’s skin, waiting to slice those who walked too close to danger.
That image hardened into horror by noon. He had arranged to meet a second contact, another Burrabazar merchant who had once worked under the Dutta family banner. The man, Haridas Mukherjee, had agreed reluctantly the night before, promising to share “something that should never have been forgotten.” They had set the meeting for Esplanade, near the tram junction.
Rohan arrived ten minutes early, notebook tucked under his arm, nerves taut. The air smelled of frying peanuts and dust. Trams clattered past in both directions, their wheels screeching against the rails. He scanned the crowd. Then he saw him—Haridas, a frail man with a shock of white hair, hurrying across the street toward him.
The moment lasted seconds. A shove, a cry, the old man stumbling onto the tracks. Rohan’s breath froze as a tram bore down with impossible speed. The brakes screamed, the crowd shouted, but it was too late. The impact was sickening, a sound of metal and flesh colliding. The tram ground to a halt, passengers spilling out, chaos erupting.
Rohan stood paralyzed. He had seen the shove—a figure melting back into the crowd, deliberate, unseen by anyone else in the confusion. By the time he forced himself forward, Haridas’s body lay twisted under the tram, lifeless eyes staring skyward.
The police arrived swiftly, herding onlookers back, waving notebooks, shouting questions. To them it was an accident, another casualty of a careless street. But Rohan knew better. He had seen the hand that pushed. The shadows had struck again.
And once more, a voice inside him whispered: You’re next.
That night, the city felt hostile. The rickshaw pullers’ calls rang like warnings, the yellow taxis’ headlights flared like searchlights. Rohan hurried home, locking his door twice, pulling the curtains tight. His hands shook as he lit a cigarette, the smoke curling around the ledger on his desk like a protective charm.
He poured himself whiskey from a dusty bottle, swallowing it in gulps that burned. Mira’s face flashed in his mind—calm, determined, a strange ally who had stepped into his nightmare without flinching. Could he trust her? Or was she another lure, another shadow in disguise? He didn’t know.
But he knew this: the ledger was a weapon, and the missing page was its bullet. Two men had died already. Their blood had soaked into the tramlines of Kolkata, invisible yet undeniable.
The phone rang.
Rohan nearly dropped his glass. He stared at the vibrating device on his desk, the unknown number flashing across the screen. He let it ring once, twice, then answered.
“Mr. Rohan.” The voice was low, unhurried, chillingly familiar. The man in dark glasses. “You should have learned your lesson today.”
Rohan swallowed hard. “What do you want?”
“What I’ve always wanted,” the voice said smoothly. “The ledger. The page. And silence.”
“I don’t have the page.”
A pause, then a soft laugh. “You will. And when you do, you’ll hand it over. Otherwise, your name will be written not in ink, but in blood on the tramlines. Do you understand?”
The line went dead.
Rohan sat frozen, the words echoing through his skull. His cigarette had burned to ash between his fingers. He flicked it away, poured another drink, and forced himself to think. If the man believed he would eventually find the page, then somewhere in the city, it still existed. And Mira might be the only one who knew where.
At midnight, he left his apartment again, ignoring the professor’s warning not to walk the streets alone. The ledger weighed in his bag like an anchor. He took the tram south to Kalighat, his eyes darting constantly to the shadows, half-expecting another shove. But no one touched him. The city moved with its indifferent rhythm, as though murder were only another note in its ancient song.
He found Mira waiting near the temple, leaning against the iron railings. Her face was pale in the glow of the streetlamps. She looked at him without surprise, as though she had known he would come.
“You saw it, didn’t you?” she asked.
He nodded grimly. “They killed Haridas.”
Her lips tightened. “They’ve been killing since 1916. Why stop now?”
“Tell me about the page,” Rohan said. “You said it exists. Where is it?”
Mira’s gaze flickered to the temple bells ringing in the distance. For a moment, her silence was unbearable. Then she said, “My grandfather smuggled it out the night Dutta disappeared. He gave it to someone he trusted—a man who vanished soon after. The page has been hidden for a century. I think I know where.”
Rohan leaned closer. “Where?”
She met his eyes steadily. “In the foundations of the warehouse on Strand Road. The same place they tried to kill us. But if we go there, we’ll both die.”
Rohan felt the ledger in his bag, its weight heavier than ever. “Then we don’t have a choice.”
For the first time, Mira’s composure cracked. Fear flickered in her eyes, quickly masked. “You’re stubborn, Mr. Rohan. That will either save you—or kill you.”
He smiled bitterly. “That’s what they keep telling me.”
The tram bell clanged in the distance, echoing through the midnight air. Rohan shivered. Blood had been spilled on those rails. His own might be next. But the story—the truth—was bigger than fear.
And so, with Mira by his side, he resolved to return to the warehouse. To dig. To find the missing page.
Even if the tramlines were already hungry for his blood.
The Woman in White
The following evening, Rohan found himself once again standing at the edge of Strand Road, staring at the blackened skeleton of the warehouse. The Hooghly river heaved sluggishly beside it, its surface glittering under a reluctant moon. Mira stood a few feet away, wrapped in her white sari, her arms crossed as though bracing herself against the damp wind. She seemed carved from the same shadows that clung to the building.
“You’re sure about this?” Rohan asked, his voice low.
She didn’t look at him. “I told you, my grandfather hid it here. He worked with Dutta until the night he disappeared. He said the truth had to be sealed away, somewhere the city itself would guard it. Foundations don’t lie.”
Rohan studied her profile—the hard line of her jaw, the calm in her eyes. He wanted to believe her. But something about the way she stood—too still, too composed—made him wonder what truths she was holding back.
They slipped inside through the broken shutter. The air was thick with mildew and salt. Their footsteps echoed on the concrete floor as they moved between stacks of rotting jute bales. Rohan’s flashlight beam cut across graffiti-scrawled walls, catching glimpses of rusted iron rods and fractured beams.
“Here,” Mira whispered, pointing to a patch of flooring near the far wall. The concrete there was uneven, cracked in places, as though patched hurriedly long ago. She crouched, tracing the cracks with her fingers. “This is where he would have hidden it.”
Rohan knelt beside her, heart thudding. He set his bag down, pulled a small hammer from it—borrowed from his landlord’s toolkit—and struck the concrete gently. The sound rang hollow. He struck again. The floor vibrated faintly. Something lay beneath.
Excitement surged in him, but so did dread. “If we find it,” he whispered, “we paint a target on ourselves.”
Mira’s lips curved into a mirthless smile. “The target’s already there. At least this way, we aim back.”
They worked in silence, chipping away at the cracked surface. Dust rose, settling on their hair and clothes. After several minutes, the hammer struck wood. Rohan’s pulse raced. They cleared the debris carefully, revealing the rotting edge of a wooden box sealed into the foundation.
Together, they pried it loose. The box creaked open under Mira’s hands, and inside lay a bundle of papers, wrapped in oilcloth. She unwrapped it with trembling fingers.
There it was—the missing page.
The parchment was yellowed but intact. Inked across it were names, written in the same neat hand as the ledger. Names of merchants, zamindars, British officials. But at the bottom, circled twice, was one that made Rohan’s breath catch.
He knew it. Everyone in Kolkata knew it. A family name still etched on glass towers, still tied to industries, charities, politics. The descendants of that name were among the city’s most powerful figures.
“God,” Rohan whispered. “If this is real…”
“It’s real,” Mira said flatly. “And it’s why they’ll kill us both.”
Before Rohan could respond, the sound of a footstep echoed through the warehouse. Then another.
They froze.
From the shadows emerged three men. The one in dark glasses led them, gun gleaming in his hand. His smile was thin, cruel.
“I told you,” he said softly. “You’d regret this.”
Mira shoved the page into Rohan’s bag and pulled him back. The men fanned out, blocking the exits. The warehouse seemed to close in, its cracked walls becoming a trap.
“Hand it over,” the man in glasses ordered. “You have no idea what you’re playing with.”
Rohan’s voice shook but held firm. “It’s the truth. That’s all I need to know.”
The man chuckled. “Truth is the sharpest lie. It cuts you first.” He raised the gun.
Before he could fire, Mira grabbed a loose brick from the floor and hurled it. It struck one of the henchmen squarely in the head. He stumbled, cursing, clutching at blood. Rohan seized the moment, yanking Mira toward the side door. They sprinted through the maze of crates as bullets cracked behind them, splinters flying.
The night air hit them like a slap as they burst outside, racing toward the riverside. The Hooghly stretched before them, black and endless. Rohan’s lungs burned. Behind them, the shouts of their pursuers grew closer.
“This way!” Mira dragged him toward a narrow lane running parallel to the river. They darted into it, their footsteps echoing against damp brick walls. Rats scurried across their path. The city loomed above them, indifferent to their chase.
At last they collapsed into the shadows of a deserted ghat. Mira doubled over, gasping. Rohan pressed a hand to his chest, trying to steady his breath.
“They’ll never stop,” he said hoarsely. “Not until we’re dead.”
Mira looked up at him, her eyes blazing. “Then we don’t run. We fight. We expose the names. Every single one.”
Rohan studied her, searching for hesitation. There was none. The woman in white had walked into the fire willingly, and she would not turn back. But beneath her fury, he sensed something else—a private vendetta, a deeper wound.
“Why are you really doing this?” he asked quietly.
She met his gaze, and for the first time, her voice trembled. “Because the circled name? The family you saw? They destroyed mine. My grandfather trusted them. He paid with his life. My father grew up in their shadow, bitter and broken. I swore I would finish what he couldn’t.”
Her confession hung heavy in the air. Rohan understood then: she was not simply an ally. She was a woman bound by blood-debt, her entire existence sharpened into a weapon against a family that had stolen everything from her.
And now he was tied to her war.
The ledger lay between them, heavier than ever. The missing page glowed in his mind, the names etched like curses. Somewhere in the city, those names were still alive, their descendants drinking tea in marble halls, unaware—or perhaps entirely aware—of the blood on which their fortunes were built.
“We’ll need proof beyond this,” Rohan said finally. “Otherwise they’ll bury us before anyone believes it.”
Mira nodded, determination hardening her features. “Then we go back. To the archives, the court records, the forgotten files. There’s more out there. This page is just the beginning.”
Rohan glanced back at the river, where faint ripples caught the moonlight. He thought of the tramlines, the bodies left behind, the whispers at his door. The city’s shadows had swallowed countless truths. Now, with Mira beside him, he wondered if they could wrench even one into the light.
Somewhere behind them, a gunshot cracked the night. Both of them flinched, instincts screaming. The chase was not over.
It had only just begun.
The House of Shadows
The city seemed to hold its breath the next morning, though perhaps it was only Rohan who did. He had hardly slept, Mira stretched across a rickety cot in the corner of his apartment while he kept vigil at the desk, the ledger open before him like a living wound. The missing page, now carefully flattened and weighted with glass tumblers, glared up with the power of revelation. Names. Dates. A century-old conspiracy stitched with ink.
But what made his chest tighten was not the past—it was the present. Two men already dead, a gun aimed at him in a warehouse, a note slipped under his door. The ledger was no longer history. It was currency. It bought silence with blood.
Mira stirred at dawn, her white sari rumpled, her hair loose. She rubbed her eyes and looked at him. “You didn’t sleep,” she said softly.
Rohan shook his head. “I couldn’t.” He gestured to the page. “You realize this links the old network to one of the most powerful families in the city. If we publish it—”
“They’ll destroy us before it prints,” Mira finished grimly. She stood, crossed to the desk, and placed her hand lightly on the brittle paper. “This is a key. But keys only matter if we find the lock it opens.”
Rohan frowned. “What do you mean?”
“My grandfather used to speak of a house,” Mira said. “A place near the docks where men gathered after midnight. Merchants, police, even British officers. They called it the House of Shadows. He never went inside, but he heard things. Deals struck, enemies betrayed, rebels funded and then sold out. If there’s proof that the network didn’t die with Dutta, it’s there.”
Rohan felt a surge of unease. “And this house still exists?”
Mira’s eyes hardened. “It does. I’ve seen it. Abandoned now, but not empty. Smugglers use it. Traffickers. It’s alive in ways you don’t want to imagine.”
The name itself clung to him. The House of Shadows. If the ledger was a door, that house was where it opened.
They set out after nightfall, moving cautiously through the chaos of Burrabazar. The streets were alive with neon signs, clattering rickshaws, the cries of late-night vendors. But as they turned toward the docks, the noise receded. Warehouses loomed silent, shutters rusted, dogs slinking in shadows.
The house appeared at the bend of a deserted lane. Its facade was a mixture of grandeur and ruin—arched windows choked with ivy, paint peeling from once-elegant columns. A massive teak door, weathered and scarred, stood half open. Faint light flickered within.
“Smugglers,” Mira whispered, her voice taut. “I told you.”
They slipped inside.
The air was damp, filled with the scent of mold and rotting wood. Dust motes floated in the beams of their flashlights. Long corridors stretched ahead, lined with doors that opened into empty rooms, their walls scribbled with graffiti, their floors littered with broken furniture. The place felt haunted—not by spirits, but by memory.
In the central hall, however, the emptiness ended. Crates were stacked high, some marked with shipping company logos, others unmarked altogether. Open ones revealed contraband: cartons of foreign liquor, counterfeit pharmaceuticals, even firearms gleaming faintly under tarps.
“This isn’t just history,” Rohan muttered. “It’s a living operation.”
Mira nodded grimly. “The same bloodlines. The same greed. They’ve just changed their products.”
A creak above them made them freeze. From the gallery overhead, voices drifted down—men speaking in hushed tones, punctuated by the clink of glasses. Rohan tilted his head, straining to catch words.
“…shipment arrives by Monday…”
“…the same account, through the old line…”
“…if the page surfaces, we’re finished…”
Rohan’s stomach lurched. They were speaking of the page. The conspiracy wasn’t just buried—it was active, self-aware, afraid.
Mira grabbed his sleeve, pulling him toward a narrow stairwell. They crept upward, careful not to make the wood groan under their weight. At the top, a half-open door revealed a chamber lit by a single lantern. Inside sat three men around a table. One was the man with the dark glasses, his weapon resting casually beside his drink. Another was a portly merchant Rohan recognized from society pages. The third was younger, well-dressed, his face strikingly familiar.
Mira stiffened, her nails digging into Rohan’s arm. “That’s him,” she whispered. “That’s the grandson. The family name.”
The younger man leaned forward, voice sharp. “We warned the journalist. He won’t stop. If he has the page—”
“Then he dies,” the man in glasses interrupted coolly.
Rohan’s breath caught. They were planning his death as casually as business.
Mira pulled him back before they could hear more. Her eyes blazed. “Now you see. This isn’t just about the past. It’s alive. Breathing. Feeding. And if we don’t expose it, it’ll go on another hundred years.”
Rohan swallowed hard. The air felt poisoned. “We need proof—photos, recordings. Something undeniable.”
He raised his camera, snapped two quick shots through the crack in the door. The click was almost inaudible, but the man in glasses stiffened, head turning sharply.
“Someone’s here,” he said.
Chaos erupted.
Mira yanked Rohan down the stairwell as shouts echoed behind them. Feet thundered above, then the sharp bark of orders. The two of them sprinted through the hall, weaving between crates. A shot rang out, splinters flying from the wood beside Rohan’s head.
They burst out into the lane, running blindly. Behind them, men spilled from the doorway, chasing, firing. Rohan’s lungs burned, but adrenaline carried him. They turned into a narrow alley, ducking behind stacked barrels. The pursuers thundered past, their footsteps fading.
For several minutes, Rohan and Mira crouched in silence, gasping.
Finally, Rohan whispered, “We got photos. Names. Proof.”
Mira’s face gleamed with sweat, her eyes fierce. “Not enough. We need to bring them down. And for that, we need allies.”
Rohan shook his head. “Banerjee warned me—trust no one.”
“Then choose carefully,” Mira said. “Because if we stay alone, we’re already dead.”
The city around them stirred restlessly, trams clanging in the distance, the Hooghly’s dark current whispering against its banks. Rohan clutched his camera, the ledger heavy in his bag, the missing page burning like fire against his side.
The House of Shadows was no longer a ghost story. It was a war room. And he had just declared himself part of the battle.
The Betrayal
The photographs trembled in Rohan’s hands as he printed them under the dim red glow of his makeshift darkroom. The men in the House of Shadows materialized in stark black and white: the merchant’s fleshy face gleaming with greed, the young heir’s profile sharp with entitlement, and, unmistakably, the man in dark glasses with his gun resting on the table like a third companion. Proof, at last. Not just the ledger, not just whispers, but faces and names, captured on film.
By the time the prints dried, the city was stirring with dawn. Mira sat at the window, white sari draped loosely around her, sipping tea as if she had not nearly died hours before. When Rohan emerged with the photos, she looked up, her expression unreadable.
“This,” he said, laying the images on the desk, “is enough to bury them.”
Mira studied the prints silently, her fingers hovering but not touching. “It’s a start,” she said finally. “But men like this don’t fall because of photographs. They’ve lived in shadows too long. They’ll call it forgery, a stunt, a lie. You need someone willing to put their name to it. Someone people will believe.”
Rohan frowned. “A witness?”
Mira’s gaze hardened. “A traitor among them.”
The idea lodged in his mind uncomfortably. He thought of Banerjee’s warning—trust no one. Yet he also knew Mira was right. A story without credibility was just ink.
When she left at noon to “make inquiries,” Rohan found himself restless. He needed advice, someone grounded. Against his better judgment, he dialed Kabir.
Kabir answered on the third ring, his voice groggy. “Rohan? You sound like death. What’s happened?”
Rohan hesitated, then said, “I have proof. Names. A whole network. I can’t tell you everything on the phone, but I need someone to watch my back.”
There was a long silence. Then Kabir said, “Meet me. Coffee House. Six o’clock. But for God’s sake, be careful.”
Rohan hung up, a weight easing in his chest. Kabir was cynical, yes, but he was loyal. If anyone could help him navigate this minefield, it was him.
At dusk, he walked to College Street, the ledger strapped inside his bag, the photographs folded into his notebook. The Coffee House buzzed with its usual chaos—students arguing politics, poets scribbling on napkins, waiters balancing trays of kabiraji cutlets and endless cups of tea.
Kabir was already there, slouched in a corner booth, cigarette between his fingers. He looked up as Rohan slid in across from him, his smile faint but warm. “You look like a man chased by ghosts.”
“Ghosts with guns,” Rohan muttered. He pulled out the photographs and laid them on the table. “Not ghosts. Flesh and blood.”
Kabir leaned forward, studying them carefully. His brow furrowed. “This is… dangerous, Rohan. Do you realize who these men are? The family name alone—if you publish this, you’ll be finished. They’ll destroy you.”
“They’ve already tried,” Rohan snapped. “They killed Mukul Sen. Haridas Mukherjee. They left me notes, followed me. I can’t walk away.”
Kabir’s eyes flickered with something—fear, perhaps, or something else. He stubbed out his cigarette, then leaned closer. “Then you need allies with teeth. Journalists can scream, but power listens only to power. What if I told you I could get you a meeting? Someone inside the political machinery. Someone who hates this family enough to protect you.”
Rohan blinked. “You can?”
Kabir smiled faintly. “You forget—I’ve been doing this longer than you. I know where to knock.”
Hope surged in Rohan, fragile but undeniable. He clasped Kabir’s shoulder. “Then set it up. Tonight, if possible.”
Kabir nodded, but his smile didn’t reach his eyes.
The meeting was arranged for midnight, in a shuttered printing press on Bowbazar Street. The air reeked of old ink and dust. Rohan arrived with the ledger and photographs, Mira at his side despite his protests. “If it’s a trap,” she had said, “you won’t walk into it alone.”
Kabir was waiting inside, leaning against a press machine. Two men stood with him—strangers in dark coats, their faces hard, their hands restless.
Rohan’s instincts prickled instantly. “Who are they?”
Kabir’s smile was calm, almost too calm. “Friends. They’ll get your story where it needs to go.”
Mira’s hand brushed Rohan’s, a silent warning. But it was too late. The two men stepped forward, one of them pulling a gun, the other reaching for Rohan’s bag.
Rohan’s chest tightened. He looked at Kabir. “What are you doing?”
Kabir’s expression was unreadable, but his voice was steady. “I warned you not to chase this. You didn’t listen. Now I’m cleaning up the mess before it kills us both.”
Betrayal struck harder than the gun muzzle pressing against his ribs. Kabir, the friend he had trusted, was the leak, the shadow feeding his every move to the enemy.
“You’ve been with them all along,” Rohan whispered.
Kabir’s eyes softened, almost apologetic. “I tried to protect you, Rohan. You think this is a game of truth? It’s survival. You can’t fight men who own the city. They wanted the ledger. I told them I’d deliver it. At least this way, you get to live.”
“Live?” Mira spat. “You think they’ll let him live once they have it?”
Kabir’s silence was answer enough.
Rohan’s mind raced. The gun pressed harder. Mira’s eyes darted, calculating.
And then, chaos erupted.
The press machine beside them shuddered violently as Mira slammed a switch. Gears clanged to life, belts snapping, paper flying in a frenzy. The sudden roar startled the gunman, his shot going wide. Rohan lunged, slamming his shoulder into the man, sending the weapon skittering across the floor. Mira grabbed a loose iron rod and swung it, striking the second assailant across the arm.
Kabir shouted, but his voice was drowned in the cacophony of machinery. Rohan scrambled for the gun, his heart pounding, his fingers slick with sweat. He pointed it at Kabir, hands trembling.
For a moment, silence. Kabir stared at him, chest heaving. “You won’t shoot me.”
Rohan’s throat burned. His hand shook. This was the man who had shared cigarettes, deadlines, laughter. But this was also the man who had led him into a trap, who would deliver him like a lamb to slaughter.
Mira’s voice cut through the haze. “He already killed you the moment he betrayed you. Pull the trigger or we’re finished.”
Rohan couldn’t. The weight of the gun was unbearable. Instead, he backed toward the door, Mira beside him, the ledger clutched tight.
“We’re not finished,” Kabir called after them, his voice sharp with anger now. “You can’t hide forever. They’ll find you. They always do.”
Rohan didn’t look back. He and Mira burst into the night, hearts pounding, lungs burning. The city lay before them, its tramlines gleaming like veins, its shadows alive with hunters.
And in his chest, the ache of betrayal burned deeper than fear.
The Last Entry
The night of betrayal clung to Rohan like a second skin. He and Mira had run until their lungs felt carved out, until the tramlines ended and the lanes blurred into darkness. In the distance, bells tolled from Kalighat temple, the sound solemn, final. They collapsed on the steps of a shuttered sweet shop, their bodies trembling, sweat-soaked, the ledger a weight between them heavier than stone.
Kabir’s face haunted him—the almost-apology in his eyes, the casual acceptance of treachery. Friendship turned knife. Trust turned poison. It left Rohan hollow, but also sharper. Whatever hope of safety remained had burned away. There was only the truth now, and whether he could deliver it before the shadows swallowed him whole.
“We can’t keep running,” Mira said, her voice ragged but steady. “They’ll hunt us until one of us breaks.”
Rohan nodded. “Then we end it.”
By morning, the city moved oblivious as ever—tram bells clanging, vendors shouting, chai stalls steaming. But Rohan felt it: the weight of eyes. They followed him everywhere, invisible yet heavy, like a hand pressing against his back. He and Mira made their way to the only place left where the story could breathe before they suffocated—the crumbling mansion on Chitpur Road, where the ledger had first been unearthed.
It seemed fitting. The beginning would also be the end.
Inside, the house groaned as though it had been waiting for them. Dust spiraled in shafts of light. Portraits on the walls leaned askew, their painted eyes weary with centuries. They spread the ledger and the missing page on the long mahogany table in the grand hall, beside Rohan’s photographs. Evidence layered like weapons.
“This is it,” Rohan whispered. “We publish. Tonight.”
Mira’s lips curved into something between a smile and a grimace. “If we live that long.”
The door creaked then. Heavy footsteps echoed through the hall. Rohan’s stomach dropped. He turned, and there they were—the man in dark glasses, Kabir at his side, and two others armed with pistols.
Kabir’s face was taut, pale. He would not meet Rohan’s eyes.
The man in glasses smiled coldly. “I told you truth cuts sharper than lies. And here you are, bleeding for it.” He nodded to the armed men. “Take the ledger. Kill the girl.”
Mira’s hand darted for the iron rod she had carried since the warehouse. But Rohan stepped in front of her, fury burning through his fear. “If you kill us, this story still spreads. Photos, notes, everything—it’s out there.”
The man in glasses tilted his head. “Bluff.”
“Try me,” Rohan hissed. “I mailed copies. I left files in places you’ll never find.”
A flicker of doubt crossed the man’s face, brief but real. He gestured for Kabir to check the table. Kabir stepped forward reluctantly, eyes flicking to Rohan’s for a heartbeat. Guilt. Weakness.
“Tell me, Kabir,” Rohan said, his voice hoarse. “Was it worth it? Selling me for your scraps of safety?”
Kabir’s hands trembled as he gathered the photographs. “You don’t understand,” he muttered. “No one fights them and lives.”
Mira’s voice cut sharp as glass. “Then let’s be the first.”
The man in glasses raised his gun, tired of words. But before he could fire, the house itself seemed to revolt. With a groan, one of the rotten beams overhead gave way, collapsing in a shower of dust and timber. Chaos erupted. Rohan lunged at Kabir, tackling him to the ground, while Mira swung her rod at one of the gunmen. The pistol clattered across the floor.
The man in glasses fired blindly, the bullet tearing into the wall. Dust filled the air, choking, blinding. Rohan scrambled for the fallen pistol, his hands finding cold metal. He spun, heart pounding, and aimed at the man who had hunted him for weeks.
For the first time, the man in glasses hesitated. His smile vanished. “You won’t,” he said flatly.
Rohan’s finger tightened. Memories flashed—Mukul crushed under the tram, Haridas shoved to his death, the whisper at his door, the note, the betrayals, the ledger’s endless names. He fired.
The shot echoed like thunder through the hall. The man in glasses staggered, shock painted across his face, then crumpled to the floor. Silence followed, broken only by Mira’s ragged breathing.
Kabir lay pinned beneath Rohan, his eyes wide with terror. “Please,” he gasped. “Don’t. I had no choice.”
Rohan’s chest heaved. He wanted to end it, to silence the man who had betrayed him. But he saw only weakness now, a hollow shell of the friend he had once known. He released him with disgust. “Live with what you’ve done. That’s punishment enough.”
Mira retrieved the ledger and the missing page, clutching them tightly. “We can’t stay,” she urged. “More will come.”
Rohan nodded. They fled the mansion as the last beams groaned under the weight of collapse, the house that had birthed the ledger finally caving in on itself.
Days later, the story broke.
Front pages screamed with the photographs, the ledger’s entries, the missing page. Names that had ruled Kolkata for a century were dragged into the light. Some called it scandal, others heresy. Protests erupted outside glass towers and colonial clubs. Political parties scrambled, alliances shifted. For the first time, shadows recoiled.
Rohan read the paper in a tea stall, the morning sun warm on his face. Mira sat opposite him, her sari neat, her eyes calm but sharp. The world around them buzzed with outrage and debate, strangers shouting over headlines, chai spilling in excitement.
“You did it,” Mira said quietly.
Rohan shook his head. “We did it.” He tapped the ledger’s photograph on the front page. “But this isn’t an ending. It’s just the last entry of one book. The next one is already being written.”
Mira smiled faintly. “Then let’s be ready to read it.”
For the first time in weeks, Rohan felt something lighter than fear. Not safety, never that—but purpose. The city still groaned with its ghosts, its tramlines still gleamed with blood. But he had pulled one truth from the shadows, and that was enough to keep him standing.
As he folded the newspaper, the chai seller shouted, “Ei Rohan-babu, bhalo likhechho!”—you’ve written well. A few customers glanced his way, nodding. For once, the eyes on him were not hunters. They were witnesses.
He lifted his cup in quiet salute, then drained it, the tea sweet and strong.
Outside, Kolkata moved on—chaotic, unyielding, eternal. And Rohan walked into it, Mira at his side, the city’s shadows no longer silent but alive with the sound of truth.
The ledger was closed. The story was not.
END
