The carnations wilted in the vase, their sickly-sweet perfume mingling with the acrid stench of death. I stood in the cramped hostel room, surveying the chaos before me. Detective Vetri’s  voice crackled through my phone, dragging me from my Sunday morning stupor. 

“Dr. Sanjay, we need you at Greenwood Hostel. Room 302. It’s… unusual.”

I sighed, running a hand through my disheveled hair. “On my way. But Vetri, you owe me a good tea.”

“You can have all the tea in the world, but get here at once,” he replied with a sigh. 

 I threw on a wrinkled shirt and lose loafers cursing all the way through unforgiving Chennai traffic. Vetri called me only when the case was too unusual for him. Whatever awaited me at Greenwood promised to be interesting. 

The hostel loomed before me, a dilapidated five-story building that had seen better days. Yellow police tape cordoned off the entrance, and a small crowd of gawkers had already gathered. I flashed my consultant badge at the uniformed officer and ducked under the tape. 

The crime scene buzzed with activity when I arrived on the third floor. Forensic technicians in scurried about, photographing and bagging evidence. The air hummed with tension and the sharp tang of chemicals. In the center of it all lay the victim – Professor Rajesh renowned biochemist at the private university. What made me run to the nearby bathroom was the way his face had erupted. 

Vetri greeted me with a grim nod. “Thanks for coming…you didn’t expect such a face…” 

I crouched beside the body, my eyes narrowing as I took in the details. No visible wounds, no signs of struggle. Yet the professor’s face was contorted in a rictus of agony, his eyes bulging from their sockets. His fingers clawed at the threadbare carpet, as if he’d tried to crawl away from some unseen horror.

“This is odd indeed,” I said standing up. “Any trace of poison?” 

Vetri shook his head. “Tox screen came back clean. It’s like his body just…gave up except for this small vial found in the bathroom.”

“Any suspects?” I asked sweating. 

“That’s the thing,” Vetri replied, his brow furrowed. “Half the campus had a motive. The man couldn’t keep it in his pants.”

“Oh then, this will be easy,” Dr. Sanjay stood up. “Did you talk to his students, and colleagues? This will be exciting when my father hears about this.”

Vetri didn’t laugh. Instead, he pulled me aside, lowering his voice. “There’s more, Sanjay. We found this in his desk drawer.”

He handed me a small vial filled with an iridescent liquid. The label bore a chemical formula I didn’t recognize. “This is the same as you found in the bathroom.”

“Any idea what it is?” Vetri asked.

I shook my head. “Not my area of expertise. But I know someone who might be able to help. Let me make a call.”

As Vetri continued to brief me on the details of the case, I couldn’t shake the feeling that we’d stumbled onto something far more sinister than a simple murder. The professor’s death was just the tip of the iceberg, and I feared what lurked beneath the surface.

Over the next few days, the case took a series of bizarre turns. Professor Rajesh was popular for all the wrong reasons. He had made inappropriate advances, in fact each more shocking than the last. He’d propositioned undergrads, pressured research assistants, and even blackmailed a few into silence. The picture that emerged was of a brilliant mind corrupted by unchecked power and desire.

One name came up often, and she was scholar of Professor Rajesh. Anita was that brilliant student who had known the professor from her undergraduate days. Witnesses placed her at the hostel on the night of the murder, and her academic records showed a particular interest in neuropharmacology. 

When we brought her in for questioning she was absolutely scared.She kept mumbling words, and nothing could be gathered from her. We let her rest, and I went alone to ask her what had happened. But this time she was resolute. 

“I didn’t do anything, I had the intention to complain about him to the college research committee, but nothing more than that.”

“Why did you want to complain about him,” I asked.

“He wanted favours…”

“What kind of favours?”

She did not respond. 

“Miss Anita,” I began, leaning forward in my chair. “Can you tell us about your relationship with Professor Rajesh?”

Anita’s eyes, dark and fathomless, met mine. “Which one?”

I blinked, caught off guard. “I’m sorry?”

A slow smile spread across her face. “Which Professor Rajesh? The brilliant mentor or the lecherous predator?”

“The predator?” I asked wondering if it made any sense. 

“I loved my brilliant mentor, not the other one.”

“How is that possible?” I asked curious. 

“You won’t understand. He seem to have two personalities.” 

“What?”

Just then someone banged on the door. I looked at the worried face of Vetri. 

“His body is missing from the morgue?” 

Anita’s face turned crimson. “Oh god, I have made a big mistake.”

“Anita,” I said softly, “what have you done?”

Her face crumpled, and for a moment, I glimpsed the scared young woman beneath the bravado. “I only wanted justice,” she whispered. “He hurt so many of us. But the system… it protects men like him.”

I leaned back, my mind racing. “Tell me about the drug, Anita. The one in the vial.”

Anita took a deep breath. “It’s my creation. A neurotransmitter modulator that induces a split personality state. I call it ‘Janus’ after the two-faced god.”

The truth unraveled like a poorly knitted sweater. Anita had developed the drug as part of her thesis project, exploring the nature of consciousness and identity. But as she delved deeper into her research, darker motivations took hold.

“I wanted him to feel what it was like,” she spat, her voice dripping with venom. “To be torn apart, to have no control over your own mind and body.”

“But where is he now?” I asked surprised at the sudden confession of the girl. 

“I don’t know. But I never meant for him to die,” Anita whispered, her anger giving way to horror. “I just wanted him to suffer, to understand what he’d done to us.”

As she poured her confession, I felt a deep unease. It is this tingling sensation I have, like a spider weaving its web. I left the room with Vetri. 

“I have sent a bunch of policemen to secure the morgue, and we are questioning the authorities there,” Vetri said pushing me to this secure cabin. 

I sat down, and wondered about the case. “This is weird,” Vetri said. “The case was almost closed, the girl confessed, but where did the body disappear.” 

“Are you sure it is Dr. Rajesh body,” I said feeling hungry. 

“What do you mean?” Vetri sat up. “Everyone testified, and the morgue postmortum confirmed the same.”

“Well, I think you better keep the girl for another day.”

“What do you mean?” Vetri asked. 

“You promised tea,” I said and walked out. 

I rode back to my house in the blistering heat, and I slowed down by street vendor shop. He seemed to have some tender coconut. I sat down and sipped it, when I noticed an odd double coconut it struck me. 

I gave cash and rushed to my office, meaning my room, and I logged into google. I searched for some specifics, and it suddenly dawned on me. As I predicted, I got a call from Vetri. 

“Hello, is she gone,” I answered immediately. 

“yes… but… how.. did you know…” he stammered. 

“Listen, get me an ambulance, and pick me up, we are going to Hosur,” I kept the phone down. 

I took my laptop, apologised to my dog Agatha, and got my pepper spray. Handy always. The ambulance arrived, my neighbours all looked worried. 

“No that old man is fine, “ I assured them, “they are taking me.”

“Why do you have any disease?” asked the old woman by the street water tap. 

I wanted to punch her, and take her along with me. But Vetri insisted we leave. 

We reached the highways to Hosur as soon as possible. 

“What have you found?” Vetri asked anxiously. 

“I will explain everything, now ask your men to go undercover to this place”, I showed him my laptop.

“Siddha hospital…” Vetri looked bewildered. “I hope you know what you are doing?”

“But first we are going to a marriage?” I said trying to get some shut eye. 

“What?” 

“Yes, the marriage of Dr. Rajesh and Anita,” I closed my eyes. 

Vetri tried to make sense of it. After 10 minutes, Vetri’s phone buzzed. He was informed that a black car carrying a body had come to the Siddha hospital. 

“That is your missing body,” I told him. 

We reached the marriage bureau, and waited in the ambulance. After twenty minutes a black car parked in front of the office. Anita and the some other man walked into the office. 

Vetri wanted to go and arrest him. 

“No wait, something is wrong, this is not Rajesh, “ we need to stop this marriage now. 

We rushed in, and Vetri immediately arrested them both. As we headed  back to Chennai in the Ambulance, Anita smiled, and asked me. 

“How did you know?” 

Vetri too wanted explanations. 

“Well you gave a tough competition I should say,” I said looking at Anita. 

“You are Dr. Rajesh, aren’t you?” Vetri looked stunned. 

“What?” he opened wide his mouth. 

“Vetri this is what I pieced together,” I started. “Dr. Rajesh was a brilliant student. But he was never comfortable with his body. So what did he do, he went to Mumbai and changed himself, but many do not know that he had a twin brother who was in Coma for the past five years and on him he performed the janus experiment.”

“What is that?” Vetri asked. 

“Spitting the personality, during day he would be a different person, and at night a different person, and you experimented the vial on your brother. It worked for sometime, and then he went mad. He came out of coma?” I asked looking at Anita. 

“Yes, and it healed him. But his personality had changed. He became a monster. “

“That is when you wanted a lab facility to further your experiment. You brought him here with your credentials, and you became a research scholar here.” 

“Yes.”

“That was when you fell in love with this man,” I said. 

“Yes.”

“So you plotted this murder of your brother, and escape without anyone knowing your true identity.”

“I thought If my little experiment  is dead, everything will be okay. But thanks to you I will be spending it in jail. “

“A new life, a new beginning,” said Vetri finally catching on. 

After reaching Chennai, I told Vetri that he had to proceed further with the case. But Vetri took me as he promised to the tea shop. It had started to rain. I sipped my chai and watched the city pulse around me. 

“To justice,” I murmured, raising my cup.

Vetri clinked his cup against mine. “And to healing,” he added softly.

As the rich aroma of spices filled the air, I allowed myself a small smile. The case was closed, but our real work was just beginning.

© Ronald Hadrian 2024