A hmad Ali let out a tired sigh. He’d recently been assigned as S.H.O. at the North Nazimabad Police Station. He had spent the last few weeks going over the town’s latest cases.

Right now, he sat with Mustafa’s murder file again. He had skimmed through it two weeks ago, but this time he read it more keenly. He remembered the case well, and was dismayed by the sketchy details recorded in the file. Not surprisingly, the case had been shut days after it had been opened as another mysterious and random murder. The most the police had bothered to establish was that there was no evidence of a family fued or a vengeful killing.

He let out another sigh, replaying the call he had received the night before. “Mustafa Zaidi’s murderer is on the loose. You must stop him before he kills again,” a husky male voice had breathed ominously before cutting the line. Since then, Ahmed had tried, in vain, to trace the call.
Of course, I know the murderer is walking free, he thought to himself. And, yes, a killer can kill again, he reasoned. Yet, it was the very nature of the call which unsettled him. After all, was the caller merely alerting him to the case or forewarning him?

He got up and walked around his room uneasily. Ahmad Ali had joined the police not too long ago. He had swiftly risen through the ranks thanks to his sharp thinking and timely action. But his achievements didn’t come without a price. The police officers in the thana had united in their anger at having to work under a young and inexperienced inspector. So far, they had tried their best to make the work difficult for him. Yet, he wasn’t about to give up. He was determined to excel at his job.

His family had been appalled when he shared his intended career with them. They openly declared that he would be wasting his education in an occupation where most people were undereducated and corruption and bribery took a front seat. Still, he was adamant; he thought that he could make it in the police force. He had always been interested in crime and justice. Through his job, he could do what he’d always wanted to – make sure criminals were caught and punished.

He had started with establishing strict rules against bribery among the officers under him. It would be a difficult transition for all of them. They had gotten so used to it that they had stopped thinking of it as sinful and illegal. Nevertheless, Ahmad Ali was going to get his way.

Ahmad Ali circled his desk, and sat back down, staring at the file once again. His mind echoed the nameless caller’s voice. There must be some reason why he had received the call, he concluded. Besides, the case had been handled in a very shoddy manner. Maybe something had been missed. Whether there may be more murders or not, he decided, this case must be reinvestigated. Every effort must be made to catch the murderer – to make the killer realize that his heinous actions had consequences, dire consequences.

He had never been able to understand how someone could take another person’s life. He shook his head, feeling sickened. Mustafa was long buried, but Ahmad Ali knew he had to make a thorough search for witnesses – not only from the day of the murder but preceding days as well. If the murder had been premeditated, people would have seen a stranger lurking around the crime scene in the days leading up to the murder. He got up from his desk with an indomitable expression and left his room.