Story of a Killer – A meeting with the gallows
Photo credit: lorettaflame from morguefile.com
The neck pain once again made James woke up in the middle of the night. He sat upright in his bunk and calmed his breathing. He then looked down to find the lower bunk empty; he wasn’t the only one awake. His cell mate, Abrahim was sitting on his hunches with his back pressed against the wall, his eyes staring constantly his own hands placed on his knees.
‘Are you afraid?’ James asked, coming down from his bunk to sit on Abrahim’s.
‘Why should I be?’ Abrahim replied in a calm voice, without moving his eyes from his hand.
James felt the area on the side of neck where it hurt most with his hand. ‘You are going to die tomorrow. That’s a reason good enough to be afraid.’
‘Aren’t you going to die?’
‘Not tomorrow. I have some years left with me.’
Abrahim lifted his eyes for the first time and made contact with James. ‘So I should be afraid just because I am going to die sooner than you. If we go by that everyone has got to be afraid.’
James lay down in the bunk stretching his hands above his head. ‘I don’t understand what you say. You are a very strange man. You never speak about what happened out there that brought you here and made you earn a meet with the gallows at such a young age. Twenty one is no age to die.’
‘Well, I am twenty and you speak as if you already don’t know what I did. You say that I never speak about the killing I have done but is there still something I need to tell you that you don’t know already. They have flashed my face on the TV more times than the days I have lived, and they have cursed more times than I have breathed.’ His voice had lost the calmness and he could feel his own hands shivering.
James took a deep breath before speaking. ‘All I know is their version. The version the powerful wanted to show the world. I want to hear you version, and I know there’s always a second version, a true one.’
Abrahim shut his eyes, his headache making it impossible to focus. And the cell was drowned in silence. Neither of them said anymore, a line was drawn between the two and though both were well awake, they were fast asleep for the each other.
Finally Abrahim opened his eyes to find James sitting in his bunk, staring at him. Abrahim studied James for a moment. He looked younger for someone in his early fifties. There was sincerity on his face, telling he really cared about him, and he knew it was true. ‘What makes you think that I will tell you the truth,’ James said.
‘You have no reason to lie to me. And even if you do how can it matter.’
Abrahim brushed his fingers through his long set of hair. ‘You know who my father was.’
‘Yeah, he was a journalist,’ James said inching closer to his cell mate.
‘No, he wasn’t just a journalist, he was The journalist, and he was the editor of the famous Daily Mail; someone who politicians, businessmen, government officials all feared and hated. I don’t even remember how many scandals and scams he revealed through his paper. He never feared the consequences to publish a story if had evidence enough to support it.’
‘They said that he tried to bomb a building with people inside.’
‘Do you know who Mustafa is?’ Abrahim knew that James knew the answer but he asked it anyway.
‘Of course I know. He was the businessman you-
‘He was not a businessman. He was a thief, a killer and a rapist. He was as corrupt as a man could be,’ Abrahim said, anger evident in his voice. ‘My father was working on a story on him and accidentally he stumbled on a full lot of evidences telling him how deep Mustafa had infiltrated in the government and all the extortion killings, which was his specialty, and the rapes, which was his favorite time pass, he had done to get his foot in such a stronghold position without scathing his reputation.’
James could guess what could have happened next. ‘Mustafa knew that you father about to burn him in the open.’
‘Yes. He knew my father wouldn’t think twice and you know what he did? He did what he always does. He kidnapped my sister. Then he called my father, gave him an address told him that a car was waiting for him there. My father was supposed to drive that car to the All India Journalist Seminar and leave the car there. The car had a bomb in it. The words he said to my father still echo in my head, “I will burn you down before you do the same to me,” and he hung up. It was clear that if my father didn’t do as he asked and went with his story, Mustafa would kill my sister and if he did just as Mustafa said then a whole lot of journalist would die and he would be the one to be blamed. There wouldn’t a thing in the world that could save him.
‘After my mother died, my father had nothing left but me and my sister. He could do anything to keep us safe but he couldn’t take lives of people who were innocent, who mattered in lives of other people,’ Abrahim stopped; his eyes were wet and were glistening in the dim light.
‘So are you telling me that your father had let your sister die and wanted to go ahead with his story? No man would ever make that choice,’ James said in disbelief.
‘He didn’t make that choice. He drove that car straight to the seminar hall and seconds before the bomb was due to explode, he pulled out from the parking and drove as far as he could. The car exploded on a solitary road and my father died with it. My father thought that he was dead then Mustafa wouldn’t have anything to fear as he only knew where the evidences were and then he would release my sister. So when Mustafa came to know what my father had did, he surely might have thought that he had nothing to fear but instead of letting my sister go away he raped her and then killed her. He burned my father’s reputation to the grounds. He planted forge evidences against him. He proved it in the court that my father wanted to kill everyone at the seminar but something went wrong and the bomb exploded with my father in the car.’
‘You killed Mustafa.’
‘Yes I did. It was the best thing I have ever done in my life. He stood in front of me, telling me what he had done to my sister, how he had given her a painful death, how she had screamed. I lunged at him with my hands, choking him, all around me people were trying to get me away but I was a strong lad, I didn’t move an inch until he was dead. You tell twenty is no age to die. My sister was twenty six and that was no age to die either. My father was never given his reputation back, no one tried to find out what happened to my sister, nobody had interest in what I had to say and I was sentenced to death. And I am going to die tomorrow, the only regret I have is that I won’t be there to see the same happening to the Mustafa’s image, neither will be he.
‘James, you are a good man. You will be released in six months. If you ever cared for me, go the house I lived in, I have been told it’s sealed by government. There you would find a floorboard in the middle of the basement. There you will find something that will alter the future of many.’
SIX MONTHS LATER
The first thing James had done after being released from the Jail was to break another law by breaking into a government sealed house. He had found the floorboard his late friend Abrahim had told him about. And he actually had found something that will change much in the city. The evidence Abrahim had told him about. The life time work of Abrahim’ father, Sebastian Khan.
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