A New Faith: Part 3: Chapter 31

In her heart, Alia knew that Sonia was right on all accounts. The investigation had run into so many dead-ends that Alia had lost count of the moments of despair she and her whole team had suffered through. Sonia was also right to pin the blame squarely on Alia. She was the lead investigator and Sonia had chosen not to interfere much in the investigation. 

Tozi had been getting increasingly alarmed by the rapidly growing violent rhetoric on the various online platforms that she had been monitoring. Every morning, Tozi would grimly brief Alia about the things she was hearing and reading and watching online. The sense of fear was palpable not just within her own team, but across Sequoia. It was as if all the joy had been sucked out of the air by a giant vacuum and in its place gloom had moved in, uninvited and unwanted.

Alia had spent the entire week going over the notes of each and every interview with a fine tooth-comb. She had read and re-read most of them until she knew some of them by heart. Nothing. There was nothing in them that pointed in any particular direction. She and her team had cast a wide net and interviewed, she thought, pretty much anyone who had ever come in contact with the first two victims. The two guys - Qasim and Nadeem - were such loners that it was bewildering to see them dead. Who had they pissed off so much to get themselves killed? 

Then in the afternoon de-brief, Sonia had literally chewed her out. Over the last week, Sonia’s temper had just been under the surface, ready to be unfurled at the slightest sign of indignation. The anger was indiscriminate. Yet, Alia had the nagging feeling that Sonia was not really angry about the way the investigation seemed to proceeding. The anger was tinged by something else. Fear of some sort, maybe? And more often than not, Alia got the sense that Sonia was not angry at her team but at someone else. This did affect the entire team negatively and, especially, Alia since Sonia seemed to be reminding her all the time that she was the lead investigator.  

Alia was deep in her despair. But she was also looking forward to the concert in the evening. The same concert that Maria had to postpone because it had originally been scheduled for the day when Nadeem’s body was found. Maria and her crew had found a new musician to take on Nadeem’s part. Maria had been spending most of her time at the venue of the concert for the last few days. Part of the reason why Alia was feeling so down was also the lack of time spent with Maria. They were not a couple in a conventional sense. They just loved to spend their spare time with each other. They “got” each other. They could be quiet when they were together. They didn’t have to say or do anything with each other. In fact, interaction of any kind was not a necessity for them. Being together in the same space was both necessary and sufficient for them. 

Alia left the police HQ early enough to be able to walk across the city to the concert venue. Not that spending another half hour at work would have made much difference to her mood or to the prospects of solving the cases. Might as well get out and about before the long winter set in. It was already chilly enough to remind people that they needed to start preparing themselves for the onslaught of the cold that was just a few weeks away. The dense humid and static air seen during the peak summer months was long gone. It was not going to be back any time soon. 

Alia liked the change of seasons. She liked that the weather changed. There was no particular weather that she felt was perfect. Her preference for weather depended entirely on her mood. There were days when she craved the hot rain when she could step into it and get all wet. On some other days, she loved staring out the window at the cold rain while sipping some exotic hot drink that Maria had whipped up.

It was a bit like how she felt about life. Change was the constant - she had read this pithy statement somewhere a long time ago. It sounded a bit too clever and trite. But still, it had resonated with her and stayed in her mind. It was the truth. Everything did change. Nothing stayed the same. Not the weather, not the people, not the surroundings, not the feelings, not the moods, nothing. If one didn’t like something in particular, all one had to do was wait and something would change so that that feeling of “not liking” could morph into something else. She was happy with this nature of the universe. She would have probably been quite unhappy with stagnation of any kind. If only the current feeling of being unsuccessful in solving the three cases would change quickly, she thought to herself. She needed to catch a break and soon. 

She was lost deep in these musings while walking by a row of shops some of which were in the process of re-stocking for the next day. Delivery vans had pulled up next to the entrance of the shops. There was a fair bit of dodging and weaving going on as pedestrians and delivery folks were both trying to navigate the sidewalk. One delivery van stacked tall with crates full of vegetables came to a sudden halt a few meters from her. The whine of the breaks sliced through the hubbub and snapped her out of her reverie. 

What happened next, happened so quickly that no one had a chance to react. But to Alia, it also felt as if it was happening in slow motion - she could see how each subsequent act was going to unfold before it happened. The van driver jumped out of the cab and started quickly climbing to the top of the cab. Alia noticed that he was wearing the classic skull cap that Jewish folks wore. More importantly, he seemed to be worriedly scanning the crates as if something was loose. He scrambled up to the top of the crates - some four meters above the ground - and was cautiously checking the ties that kept all the crates securely tied to the flat-bed of the van. 

She couldn’t see exactly what he was doing and in any case he was in the corner of the stack farthest from her. It just so happened that she was at a distance from the van itself and was an unusually tall woman, that she could see him at all. As he was bent, she saw one of the stacks of crates slowly lean out and then topple over right on top of a pedestrian who was standing there chatting with none other than Shahid. 

It was all over in an instant, the topmost crate in the stack fell directly on the head of the man. There was a sickening crunch and Alia instantly knew that the skull had been cracked. The man’s face was not visible to Alia but she could see the shock on Shahid’s face. The man reflexively tried to turn around and raise his arms feebly in an attempt to fend off whatever was hitting him. But he might as well have been waving matchsticks to stop a train. The remaining crates rained on his body and without making a sound the man crumpled to the ground under their weight. 

Alia had instinctively raised her hand to attract the attention of the van driver about this tragedy that she almost had a premonition of. She was shouting a warning about the falling crates when the tragedy - in fact - took place. She rushed over to the man and desperately started heaving off the crates lying on top of him. There was surprisingly not much blood and for a moment she felt that maybe he was going to be fine. Other onlookers rushed to help her, but Shahid was rooted to his spot, speechless. If anyone had been looking at him, they would have first noticed the fear. Then they would have seen the fear make way to a blinding rage.  

Alia couldn’t find any pulse. The man had died instantly when the first crate had struck him on his head. That’s why there was not much blood. She called emergency services and told them calmly that they needed to send an ambulance. She reported the accident to the constable on duty. It was a tragic accident, as far as she could tell. 

The van driver heard the commotion and leapt down from top of the stacks. In that unthinking action, he badly sprained his ankle but still managed to limp over to the dead body. He was trying to say something but the pain from his sprained ankle and his shock were competing with each other. A few garbled words leaked out of his mouth while he clutched his leg in agony. 

Alia flashed her badge and created a rough cordon around the scene of the accident. While doing so, she pushed Shahid back. Shahid was purple with anger and shouted something which she couldn’t catch over all the commotion. She reached the van driver and started asking him questions. She got him to sit down on a chair that somebody had kindly put next to him. The obvious relief he felt after taking the weight of his sprained ankle almost turned into a smile. It was not a smile but just his face adjusting from a grimace to a semblance of normalcy. 

“Sir, please can you describe to me in your own words what just happened.”

“I had been hearing something rattle over the last five minutes. I didn’t think much of it initially, but then I was worried that something may have come loose. I pulled over at the first chance that I got in order to check it out. I went up to the top and started checking the ties around the crates. For once, it was not me who had tied the crates. Someone at the warehouse had done it because I was busy going over the inventory with the manager. I usually check the ties, twice. But today, I was running late and I just decided to trust whoever had done that job for me. I was working my way through the ties when I heard all the shouting and saw that one of the stacks had come loose and toppled over this poor man. I am so sorry this happened. I really am. Oh god. This is so horrible!”

The words came out in a rush. Alia jotted down the notes and she had also switched on the recorder to ensure that this first statement - usually, the least unguarded one - was available for the team who was going to investigate this incident. She was almost certain that this was an unfortunate accident and that this statement and her witness account would be sufficient to avoid any formal investigation. 

She was following up with more questions when the police and ambulance arrived. The medical examiner - it was not Leela - came and quickly made the pronouncement of death and went about her protocol. The police - three of them - started going around getting statements from witnesses as one of them came to talk with Alia and the van driver. Alia sent him the recording and handed her notes over to him. Then he quickly took down her statement. As he went back to confer with his team about any additional statements, the gathered crowd started thinning. The ambulance pulled away once the body was loaded up. 

One of the police was interviewing Shahid and Alia looked from afar to check how that was going. She had interviewed Shahid in connection with Nadeem’s murder. In fact, she had gone through the interview notes from that particular one for what felt like a hundred times. That guy was volatile. He had a temper that he kept in check for most of the time. But it had been unleashed once already when he had gotten in that fight a few days ago in the warehouse district.

It had started a mini-riot then. It was quite clear that he was the instigator from all the various statements her team had collated about the incident. However, the prosecuting attorney had decided to not charge anyone for the incident. All the people who had been arrested that day had been released with a caution. Most of them had already been regretting their actions and had apologized profusely. All except one - Shahid. He had stayed defiant through the entire time he was locked up and he had been non-committal when he was cautioned. He needed watching over, Alia felt. As if to prove how accurate Alia’s reading of Shahid was, the constable interviewing Shahid had to step back as Shahid started screaming at her. Flecks of spittle were flying from his mouth. 

“We are being systematically targeted by the infidels. They are trying to exterminate us. We shall not take this lying down. We shall fight back. Just you wait!”

“Sir - please could you calm down and tell me in your own words what exactly happened?” the constable firmly but politely reiterated her question. 

“I was talking with my brother - a fellow devout Muslim - peacefully, when that Jewish dog tried to kill us both. I saw that he was on top of the crates. He pushed them on us and my brother was killed. By the grace of Allah, I was spared. But I shall have my vengeance! They have been killing us for centuries. They even took away our holy sites in Jerusalem. They will not get away with this. That I promise.” 

This was such a blatant mischaracterization of what had happened that Alia almost thought that Shahid was kidding. Of course, he was anything but kidding. He was deadly serious. She noticed that the thinning crowd had halted in its stride and people were starting to press back. Shahid had also noticed that and as if a stage performer had found his drooling audience, he was relishing all the attention. He puffed out his chest and started gesticulating wildly as he shouted religious slogans again and again. 

Alia stepped over quickly to where the constable was interviewing Shahid. Her size and her natural authority made an immediate impression not only on Shahid but the crowd that had begun to congregate around him. In a loud voice, that she knew would carry to the crowd, she told Shahid to calm down and give his statement to the constable. She looked around and assured everyone that the police would carefully investigate the incident. If there had been any foul play then the perpetrator would be punished through the due process of law. Luckily, the van driver had been taken away in the same ambulance to treat his sprained ankle. Else, who knows, Shahid may have incited the crowd to attack the driver then and there. Shahid backed away from Alia still shrieking his slogans. When it was clear that he was not going to stick around, the crowd also quickly dissipated. The three constables thanked Alia for her help in keeping the situation under control. They tidied up the incident site and left soon after.