The Murderer and The Detective

by - Saturday, March 07, 2015

- Ahmad  Jalil
1st Year MBBS


17 April 2014. 7.08 am

Today was supposed to go like any other day. Charles wasn't expecting this at all. In fact it took him a solid couple of minutes to really believe in what he was seeing. Nobody had paid him a visit here and he had spent his last 8 years here in a complete solitude from outside world. He struggled every day to keep his sanity in this room – rather it was a cell. Every day he asked himself the same question,

'How?'

It was the simple one-word-question that had been his companion for so many years now. And finally, when he was on the verge of losing it, today he found a way of answering it. Or rather the ‘way’ itself found him. For 'he' was sitting in front of him. The very person who was responsible for Charles' present condition. Charles knew that he should be afraid. The man was a serial killer after all. He knew he should call someone. But the last eight years had taken away everything from him. Everything but his curiosity. And now all that remained was that question. His burning curiosity to find out know how he was beaten. He didn't even know how he was able to recognize him, for he had never seen him before.

…but somehow Charles knew it was him.

‘How’ was all he could say to the man sitting in front of him. In return the man gave a sinister smile, rubbed his beard and took a long breath as if preparing himself for a long conversation.


8 June 2004. 8.44 pm

It was a pleasant day, neither too cold nor too hot. Too bad he was working because he would have loved to take Amy out for dinner today. The call came in about twenty minutes ago. A man had found the body of a woman. She had gone missing about a week ago. Charles was given the case. It was his 15th case, the previous 14 were all solved – a fact he was very proud of. He reached the place where the body was discovered and after flashing his detective badge a couple of times, he went in. One glance at the crime scene was all he needed to know that he's got a bad one. Every inch of the place was painted crimson with blood.


16 September 2004. 10.21 am

Detective Charles and his team were standing at another crime scene. The victim, again a woman, was similarly killed. This time it was the victim's father who called the police. He went to check when his daughter didn't come down for breakfast this morning.


22 February 2005. 11.21 pm

The police chief released the statement in the press that a serial killer was on loose after finding another body.


1 May 2005. 7.41 am

So far 5 bodies had been found. All women. All killed exactly the same way. Charles was working harder than ever. He was getting very little sleep and spending most of his nights in his office, something that Amy wasn't very pleased with.


14 October 2005. 4.44 pm

After finding a couple of more bodies, Charles and his team finally made a breakthrough. A loose strand of hair was found entangled in the latest victim's hair. Meanwhile, Amy broke up with him stating that he was always 'too preoccupied'.


16 October 2005. 6.00 am

Something very strange happened. He found himself sitting in his car at 6 in the morning whereas the last thing he remembered was going to bed at night.


1 November 2005. 7.00 am

Headline news: Police arrested 33 years old detective Charles Beckham for the murder of 7 known and possibly more women after finding his DNA on a victim. (Clips showing him shouting over and over again that he's not a murderer while 3 policemen put him in the prison van)


2 February 2006. 8.00 am

A team of psychiatrists came to check him in the prison though he wasn't sure why. He wasn't crazy. The killer was still out there. He tried telling this to everyone, no-one believed him. Not even Amy who visited him once in the jail.


1 March 2006. 9.00 am

Today was his hearing in the court. There was a lot of buzz around. After all it wasn't every day that police arrest a hotshot detective for the same murders that he's trying to solve. The families of victims were also present. The people that he once consoled and talked to as a detective were looking at him with contempt and hate.


23 May 2006. 10.33 am

He was shifted to Atascadero State Hospital. They were calling him 'The Mad Detective'. Charles didn't know how the murderer staged it but he did it good. The evidence against him was rock solid. No-one believed him.
.
.
17th April 2014. 7.09am

A group of medical students were being shown around the Atascadero State Hospital. After visiting many patients, their professor brought them to room 976.
'And here we have Mr. Charles Beckham, aka, The Mad Detective. He suffers from dissociative identity disor......'

The student in the back tuned his professor out, and turned to look into the room through a narrow window in its heavily locked door. There he saw a man talking to his own reflection in the polished floor...

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