Till Death Do Us Part

The wind ruffled through my hair. My eyes stung. I didn’t blink. I let myself fall till my hands suddenly met the cold metal. I grasped. It was muscle memory at work. I held on to the grill and pulled myself over the railing and into the tiny balcony. Then, I ran across to the other side, flexing my fingers in preparation. I climbed over the ledge and launched myself towards the window sill jutting out a few inches from the wall. My fingers latched onto it, my toes placed flat against the wall. My limbs strained themselves as I climbed first onto the scaffolding, and then finally, onto the parapet of the roof.

My throat was dry; with every breath I took, I felt the cool air against the back of my mouth. Sweat trickled down my forehead, slid against my eyebrow and down my cheek. My muscles pumped blood, throbbing with a rhythm.

The neighbourhood stretched out before me, houses stacked up against each other, lights pouring out of the rooms. The street lights added a fluorescent glow to it. I smiled. I had crossed the entire area in... I looked at my watch... 5 minutes.

I deserved it. To win.

I took a deep breath, letting the wind cool my skin, my aching limbs glad for the relief. I could hear my heart beating inside my chest, such was the rush that Parkour brought me. It was my favourite bit about this. The thrill. It was all consuming. As long as I was in action, I didn’t even need to think about anything else.

I didn’t want to think about anything else.

Completing the stretch in record time was an added bonus. 5 minutes! My heart leapt with joy. It was the best attempt ever!

“Second best,” a voice rang out from behind me.

No. Not you. Not here. Why can’t you just ... No.

Suddenly, the wind felt way too cold against me. It was only September, the cold was unnatural. I could feel goosebumps erupting on my skin. I became aware that my legs were too tired, so I slowly sat down on the parapet itself.

I didn’t answer.

I heard his footsteps coming towards me.

“You think so?” I asked, dryly.

He pulled himself up beside me and settled down.

“You know so.”

I stayed quiet.

“4 minutes and 20 seconds.”

I glanced at Prateek. He was staring ahead, a slight smile playing on his lips, as if remembering a very fond memory.

My mouth felt really dry.

“That was just one time,” I replied with some difficulty.

He laughed.

“It was enough to terrify you.”

I felt shivers rising through my spine. My eyes stung, this time, there were tears.

“I am the champion! I deserved it!” I growled.

Prateek laughed, again. I felt overwhelmed. I scrambled to my feet, anger... and was it terror... coursing through me.

“I won! I. WON. Not you! Now stop torturing me!”

Prateek stopped laughing. He kept his cold eyes trained on me as he got up, leveling with me.

“Tell me. Did I lose? Or did you not let me win?”

I could hear the blood thumping in my ears.

“You fell! It was an accident.”

“You knew the scaffolding was broken. You it broke it yourself,” Prateek replied, calmly.

My fingers felt numb. The cold had reached my bones, I was shivering. Tears were rolling down my throat by now.

“You don’t understand! I needed to win. I had to win!” I yelled, my voice trembling.

Prateek took a step closer to me.

“You watched as I fell. You saw me die. You killed me.”

I choked on the sobs that wracked through my body. It was so cold. Too cold. Almost like... dead cold. I was shivering harder now.

“Please, you were my best friend,” I whispered.

Prateek raised an eyebrow and tilted his head slightly.

“You still are my best friend.”

He closed in and wrapped his arms tightly around me. I stood frozen in his embrace. He was supporting almost my entire weight. My knees felt too weak to carry me. I let him rub soothing circles on my back.

“It’s okay. I understand,” he said, holding me tighter.

“You do?”

“Yes. Do you remember what we used to say?” he asked, his lips almost touching my ears, his breath, frigid.

Of course I remember.

“Till death do us part...”

He took a step towards the edge. I went with him. I didn’t really have any option. I was scared. I held him closer, tight. There was no separating us now.

“Till death unite us again,” he whispered.

 And then, he jumped.

Perfection

I walked down a lonely road.

The snow made muffled noises under my boots. As surely as I walked, fresh white flakes covered my footprints as if they were determined to hide my whereabouts. Quite a few times during my walk, I had looked back and watched my footprints fading into the snow, like magic. I hugged my jacket closer to me. My face had become almost numb from cold, but I didn’t mind much. I knew I would be home soon. Plus, I had always loved the snow, since I was a little boy. It looked so magical on the Christmas cards that we got, or in the scenes from movies. Back then, I would satisfy myself by imagining what living in that picture would be like. Years had passed, and the little gingerbread houses had been replaced with real ones, but today, the picture was the same. And it was perfect.

The moment I thought of perfection, a sharp pain erupted right in between my shoulder blades. I cringed. The pain wasn’t real, just a memory. Many memories actually, but I pushed them aside. My father had been a hard man to please but I would like to think he’d be proud of me if he saw me today. 

It was flawless.

As I walked down the winding lane of this little town, nestled between the hills, I marvelled at the sight before me. The street lamps glowed orange, the lamp shades covered with powdery white snow, some lined with icicles. The houses were quiet, giving an impression of the entire world sleeping peacefully with their blinds drawn. It was so quiet that I could hear my heart thumping against my chest as I climbed the road. I exhaled and my breath briefly formed a smoky pattern against the icy air, before the wind erased it. As I trudged up my driveway, with the cold creeping into my bones and thoroughly exhausted, I looked back one last time. I watched as the last traces of my boots disappeared under the snow. I saw the sloping roofs of houses, covered with snow, the light from some of the houses falling across their porch, filtered through the blinds. It was like everything my young mind had ever imagined. But this was better because it was real. It wasn’t just a perfect theory or an image anymore. It was reality. I smiled to myself and entered the house, closing the door behind me.

A Few Months Later

I sat down at the dining table, my morning coffee in one hand, the newspaper in another. The last few months in this otherwise quaint and safe town had been pretty eventful to say the least. It all started when the police found a dead body.

It had snowed very heavily during the winter and after the snow melted, the police recovered a body from a remote corner of the town. Apparently, the man had been murdered. The citizens were shocked and scared for days as the police turned over every stone for clues. But they found none. The snow had preserved the body, they said. So the time of death could not be confirmed. No weapon was found, no fingerprints and no witnesses either. They tried to collect forensic evidence but any DNA from the killer had already been destroyed by the snow. For a month, the police tried knocking down every door they could think of.

They came knocking at my door before the first week was over. I was a very well-known, albeit recently retired, criminal psychiatrist and Officer McGee all but begged me for help. I happily obliged. Officer McGee wore the most genuinely flabbergasted expression as he handed me the file for the first time. “We’ve never seen anything like it”, he exclaimed, “Can you help us put together a psychological profile?” I reviewed the file and agreed. But to no avail. I attempted to read what kind of a person would be capable to doing this but I could give them nothing. Nothing much, anyway.

“The killer is probably male, because he easily overpowered the victim, though I can’t completely rule out a woman of considerable size and strength. He doesn’t torture. He just kills. So, certainly not a sadist. He is clearly smart, left no evidence at all. It’s all about the precision.”
That was my official statement to the police department. Officer McGee read my report and looked at me in despair.
“So, my suspects are every able-bodied man and woman, with absolutely no special physical or psychological marker?! I thought you were supposed to narrow it down, Doctor. But what you’re giving me is...Ugh... Even you fit the bill!”
I smiled and said, “You never know what a person is truly capable of, Officer. And I have a feeling your suspect is banking on that.”
In the days that followed, Officer McGee often dropped by, keeping me updated on the case, though the updates never had anything new to them. Even though they had managed to trace the victim’s family, they had absolutely no clue about the murderer. Finally, they decided it was nothing but a wild goose chase and probably a robbery gone wrong.

Today, the news headlines proclaimed in capital letters ‘DEAD BODY IN THE SNOW, CASE GOES COLD’.
I read through the article sniggering at the choice of words and sipping my coffee. My eyes paused over the statement given by the police commissioner. He said that his department had been meticulous in their investigation. There just wasn’t enough evidence to go on. In closing, he had termed the case as being a ‘perfect crime’. I put the coffee down and smiled. In spite of myself, I could feel pride swelling up inside me. My mind wandered back to a particular day in the office when a man had told me something that had always stayed with me. He was a serial killer, and was caught only after he had put at least 17 women to rest. And I had been given the task of his psychological evaluation. When I asked him how he got caught, he looked me straight in the eye and said, “I slipped up, I knew I would eventually. The ‘perfect’ crime is only a theory.” The clarity of his thought had rattled me initially but I could never stop thinking about it since.

The perfect crime. An improbable theory. A remarkable challenge.

 I went through the article one more time.

A little voice inside my head said, “The perfect crime isn’t a theory anymore.”

The next day, Officer McGee sat on my couch, his face sullen, and his body sagging unconsciously under the defeat. He had just finished his third drink while I was well onto my fourth one.
“You act like it’s a celebration,” McGee said, indifferently.
“Why not? Officer, I have dealt with enough horrific crimes to last me a lifetime. So I always find a reason to celebrate when a case closes.” I smiled. I didn’t know whether it was the scotch or just exhilaration that I was feeling, but my throat felt warm and my fingers were tingling.

“But we lost this, Doctor. I have no reason to celebrate.”

“You do. You have come across an unsolvable murder. A perfect crime. It’s a first. You should be honoured.”

McGee grunted. I felt the tiniest spot anger rising in my chest but I clamped down on it.

“Don’t you see?” I continued earnestly, “He figured out a way to make this perfect. For him, it’s not a murder or a crime. It’s perfection. That kind of surgical precision with a Persian knife is almost impossible. It’s art! So, let’s drink to that! You worked a case so early in your career that most detectives can’t even dream of!” I raised my glass towards him as a toast.

Officer McGee sat very still, frozen in place. He had the most unreadable expression plastered to his face.

“I never mentioned anything about a Persian blade,” he whispered.