Dharmesh Singh was driving his car when his mobile beeped. He parked his SX4 on the roadside and only then did he click his mobile open. The Investigators were very cautious about these traffic rules, if they were caught breaking such rules, the media would hype the news and then his organization would be in trouble.
He ended the call after two minutes, and dialed Inspector Sharma’s number.
“What?” Snapped the Inspector.
Dharmesh told him about the case, and heard the Inspector take an audible sigh.
“I’m a bit busy right now; I’ll meet you there in an hour. Meanwhile you get there and do what you do best.”
“I can’t start without you. You do remember the Yadav Protocol. Don’t you?”
“You know what I think about the Yadav Protocol.”
Dharmesh shook his head and ended the call.
According to the Yadav Protocol, an Investigator could investigate a crime scene only under strict supervision of police personnel. It was necessary so that the Investigators couldn’t tamper with the evidence. Dharmesh and Sharma had bent the protocol on several occasions due to the Inspector’s laziness and his blind faith in Dharmesh.
Dharmesh started his car and hurried to reach the crime scene.
Rajiv saw a SX4 approach him. He had already phoned his employer and told him that he wouldn’t be coming as he wasn’t feeling well, which wasn’t very far from the truth.
A smart man stepped out of the car and made his way towards him. His plain civil clothes and sharp darting eyes suggested that he was an Investigator, not a police officer.
“Are you all right?”
Rajiv nodded and mumbled something inaudible.
The man identified himself as Dharmesh Singh from the Investigators. He took a deep breath and then asked, “Where is…it?”
Rajiv turned and led the way to the crime scene. He stopped twenty meters from the body and pointed. He saw that Dharmesh didn’t even flinch. The man’s relaxed behavior made him feel a lot better.
“When did it happen?”
“9:23:05.”
Dharmesh turned around to face the man.
Rajiv saw his perplexed expressions and then added. “His watch stopped working after the impact.”
Dharmesh looked at the body’s wrist and then nodded in agreement. He took out a pair of gloves and then carried out a detailed inspection of the body.
Rajiv turned around, and waited for Dharmesh to finish.
Just as Dharmesh finished examining the body, Inspector Sharma arrived with half a dozen other people, and a constable. Dharmesh immediately recognized them as the relatives of the fallen man.
Inspector Sharma jogged to join Rajiv and Dharmesh, and looked back at the family that had surrounded the body and broken into hearty sobs.
“He text-messaged that he was going to kill himself and they forced me to take them along.”
Dharmesh looked at each member of the family. He located the victim’s mother, father, elder brother, sister, wife and a friend. Dharmesh noticed that the mother’s leg was plastered, and she was limping badly.
“Where do they live?”
The Inspector pointed to the flats next door.
“Why didn’t the victim go to the terrace of his own building?”
“The elevator in that building is malfunctioning.”
Dharmesh suggested, “Or maybe he didn’t want to jump near his own house.”
The Inspector considered his remark and then shrugged his shoulders.
“So what did we find?”
Dharmesh took a long look at the body and then began.
“The man fell from the terrace, and died on impact. That’s all I can say for now.”
The Inspector smiled. “Didn’t we already know that.”
Rajiv looked at both the men and then added, “I also saw a mobile phone dropping next to the body.”
Dharmesh nodded. “Yes, he was probably clutching the mobile before he jumped.”
“Maybe, but the mobile dropped after the body fell.”
Inspector Sharma intervened. “Obviously, the mobile weighs a mere 500 grams in comparison to this 80 kilo man. The man would have reached the ground first.”
Dharmesh suppressed a laugh. The Inspector couldn’t be blamed for his incorrect theory. Even Aristotle had believed that heavy objects fall faster than light ones.
“No, heavy and light object fall at roughly the same speed. The time interval between their collisions with the ground may have appeared to be longer to Rajiv because he was in Mort state.”
“Mort state?”
Dharmesh and other Brains had been using the term for so long that he had forgotten that it was a word unique only to the Investigator’s vocabulary. He vaguely remembered the comic origin of the word. Mort state referred to the condition of the lemur Mort at the 15th second of this video.
It resulted in an increase in heart beats, and the time appeared to slow down for a person in Mort state. So a second seems more like a minute, as the mind works much faster due to increased supply of blood, and other related changes. He believed that Rajiv must have perceived the small interval of time between the collisions of the body and the mobile significantly larger. It wasn’t a perfect explanation, but he was unable to come up with a better solution.
However he was sure that a mobile and a man dropped from the same height would take the same time to reach the ground.
Go to Episode 3
Go to Episode 3
