of them left satiated, the burly man stayed behind to manacle her wrists. Satisfied with his work, he grinned down at her as she lay helpless, smeared in blood and stains, on the mattress. He dragged her upright by her arms, and put her against the wall to shackle her feet.
‘We’ll be back for more’, said the burly man. He laughed into her face, ‘You are pretty tight, my little whore!’
An overwhelming sense of shame overcame Grace. Her soul died. Her belief in God was buried with it. This was not the world she wanted to live in. She was numb, bruised and hurting. She had been gang-raped. Her heart withered within her as it could no longer even remember the feelings associated with happiness.
She thought of the last happy moment in her life. She was excited as she got ready for the reunion. She imagined herself dancing with her batch mates, pure and pristine in the lovely white evening dress that she’d had specially made for the occasion. Reality slapped her hard as tears streamed down her blood-stained cheeks.
The Hunt for Clues
Standing by the graveyard where Monica and the previous victims’ bodies had been found, Inspector Khan waited impatiently for the sun to come up. Sleep was just not an option, as this was a race against time. And, to ensure there were no more victims, he had to find Grace and her abductor or abductors, and pronto.
The sight of Monica’s body had filled him with rage. He’d vowed to get to the bottom of it. And now Grace had gone missing, another young girl who’d yet to experience the promise of a bright future. The victims were mostly twenty-one to twenty-nine-year-olds, although, there had been a few who were younger. And who would know this better than him?
It had been a relaxing and uneventful year until they had found the body of Monica in the graveyard which seemed a repeat crime following the discovery of the corpses of four other women including that of a Swedish tourist. The vigil around the graveyard had been tightened by Joe’s personally deployed watchmen, but it hadn’t helped.
The frequency of the crime reflected a recurring pattern – occurring once in six years, but the body count was steadily mounting at an alarming rate. There was no guarantee that Grace was not brutally gang-raped in the otherwise peaceful district.
At the first signs of daybreak, Inspector Khan barked out orders to his twenty-member team that included his men from the police station and the locals. Sipping on a cup of tea, he quietly went over his plan for a grid-search. It was 5.30 a.m., and the rough terrain, steep in places, needed more sunlight to carry out a thorough combing of the area.
As he gave a succinct briefing with instructions to the team of volunteers, he knew there was a tragedy in progress and they didn’t have much time to rescue Grace. The team was given a probability distribution map that covered a perimeter of 10 kilometres with the vineyard as the epicentre. His experience had given him enough wisdom to take a step back and wait for some results before proceeding any further. He needed to keep his cards close to his chest as he played them.
Time was of the essence and every minute lost would only take Grace closer to the brink, and, considering the horrific modus operandi of the crime, she would lose either her mind or her life at the end of it.
Having spent quite a while in the area and based on all the information he could gather about Grace’s last known whereabouts, he gave practical orders for the search that included the terrain and profile of Grace. And, based on his subjective judgement, he listed out the likely indications that his survey team had to keep an eye out for.
The search was marked with a gradient of prioritization: start with the high probability sections for the initial searches, and then move on to areas with less potential of being the place of Grace’s incarceration. Experience had taught him that this controlled procedure would only
‘We’ll be back for more’, said the burly man. He laughed into her face, ‘You are pretty tight, my little whore!’
An overwhelming sense of shame overcame Grace. Her soul died. Her belief in God was buried with it. This was not the world she wanted to live in. She was numb, bruised and hurting. She had been gang-raped. Her heart withered within her as it could no longer even remember the feelings associated with happiness.
She thought of the last happy moment in her life. She was excited as she got ready for the reunion. She imagined herself dancing with her batch mates, pure and pristine in the lovely white evening dress that she’d had specially made for the occasion. Reality slapped her hard as tears streamed down her blood-stained cheeks.
The Hunt for Clues
Standing by the graveyard where Monica and the previous victims’ bodies had been found, Inspector Khan waited impatiently for the sun to come up. Sleep was just not an option, as this was a race against time. And, to ensure there were no more victims, he had to find Grace and her abductor or abductors, and pronto.
The sight of Monica’s body had filled him with rage. He’d vowed to get to the bottom of it. And now Grace had gone missing, another young girl who’d yet to experience the promise of a bright future. The victims were mostly twenty-one to twenty-nine-year-olds, although, there had been a few who were younger. And who would know this better than him?
It had been a relaxing and uneventful year until they had found the body of Monica in the graveyard which seemed a repeat crime following the discovery of the corpses of four other women including that of a Swedish tourist. The vigil around the graveyard had been tightened by Joe’s personally deployed watchmen, but it hadn’t helped.
The frequency of the crime reflected a recurring pattern – occurring once in six years, but the body count was steadily mounting at an alarming rate. There was no guarantee that Grace was not brutally gang-raped in the otherwise peaceful district.
At the first signs of daybreak, Inspector Khan barked out orders to his twenty-member team that included his men from the police station and the locals. Sipping on a cup of tea, he quietly went over his plan for a grid-search. It was 5.30 a.m., and the rough terrain, steep in places, needed more sunlight to carry out a thorough combing of the area.
As he gave a succinct briefing with instructions to the team of volunteers, he knew there was a tragedy in progress and they didn’t have much time to rescue Grace. The team was given a probability distribution map that covered a perimeter of 10 kilometres with the vineyard as the epicentre. His experience had given him enough wisdom to take a step back and wait for some results before proceeding any further. He needed to keep his cards close to his chest as he played them.
Time was of the essence and every minute lost would only take Grace closer to the brink, and, considering the horrific modus operandi of the crime, she would lose either her mind or her life at the end of it.
Having spent quite a while in the area and based on all the information he could gather about Grace’s last known whereabouts, he gave practical orders for the search that included the terrain and profile of Grace. And, based on his subjective judgement, he listed out the likely indications that his survey team had to keep an eye out for.
The search was marked with a gradient of prioritization: start with the high probability sections for the initial searches, and then move on to areas with less potential of being the place of Grace’s incarceration. Experience had taught him that this controlled procedure would only
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