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The Titled Reprisal

The Titled Reprisal

18 mins
367


“Fear is not real. It is a product of the thoughts you create. Fears are nothing more than a state of mind.”

 

 "Radio control.... This is an emergency... I repeat this is an emergency..! The Gas Tank storage outside the Ralph Industries containing Methyl Isocyanate has exploded…! Due to heavy rains, the gas is spreading fast in the entire city…! Carry out the evacuation immediately…!”


As the medical team entered the city, amidst heavy rains, they saw people running around holding their throats, coughing hard, covering their eyes as they ran searching for shelter. All those inside their homes were closing the windows fast, others had covered their faces with masks. Almost all the roads were filled with people crawling and coughing hard, rubbing their eyes, vomiting, and fainting.

 

In the coming days, a huge legal battle issued between the two brothers of the Ralph Industries, each holding the other one responsible for the disaster.

 

Twenty Five Years Later:

Body of a Young Woman Found on NH-R05

 

Daily Article – ATI

A dead body of a young woman has been found on NH-R05 at the parking side of the road. Sources said a highway police patrol vehicle detected it and called upon the local PD. On initial inspection, the police have said that a Heavy vehicle must have hit her, probably while crossing the road. Due to heavy rains, the driver probably failed to see the girl. Her identity is still unknown. The Local Police are investigating the matter.


In another case, local city inspector Peter Watts has been put under another enquiry by Police officials. Last month, Peter had accidentally killed two civilians while trying to stop a bank robbery. The sessions court has now handed over the case to Senior Officials. Further details of the reports will be revealed by the officials after the enquiries are completed.

 

“Who must’ve killed her?” Inspector Peter Watts said as he observed the girl’s body on the road, balancing the umbrella in his hand. It was raining heavily and even though it was daytime, the visibility was almost zero. Yesterday night, a highway patrolling team had observed an abandoned car on the road and raised an emergency call to the local police. Peter and his team immediately rushed on the spot.


“There’s hardly any visibility around, Mate.” His colleague, Richard replied. “The girl’s vehicle is parked there. Her car probably skidded from the road. She came out asking for help but never saw another vehicle coming and got hit by it. I’m just assuming…” he said as he pointed to a parked vehicle at one side of the road.

Peter then took out the photo of the painting and observed it.


Two days ago, he had received this painting wrapped in brown paper. It was an abstract one, with all the geometric shapes and planes marked in criss-cross fashion. It was signed, at the bottom right with a signature “Daniel’s Kraft”. Peter couldn’t understand the meaning and left it unattended. However, something inside his mind told him he needs to study the painting. He had then invited Alfred Atkins, a bearded, somewhat aged popular artist in the city, to get it elaborated in more detail.


 “The patterns are formed with geometric shapes. The angles and planes indicate another pattern." He then indicated a part in the lower left corner." This part looks like.... A human figure, probably a girl. The abstract plane below indicates something like a pathway." Observing more clearly, he then saw something else," No... I think it’s a broad road. Yes.... This plane then forms a broader road. So that means we have a girl walking on a broader road. But who is she? Where's she going? “He then studied it more clearly. “The plane which resembles the road is indicated with hot colours at one end." he then showed that part on the painting. "It may mean that the lady is walking down the road which is on fire." 

"Why would anyone send a painting like this?" Richard asked. 

"Maybe referencing to some unsolved case. Or... Maybe some forthcoming danger for...” Alfred abruptly stopped in between. He kept observing the color pattern at the start of the road. Frowning and not convinced, he observed all the edges of the painting. He then studied the different patterns marked at the edges of the art.

 

“You sure you got only one painting?" He asked, still studying the canvas in detail. "I think this is an incomplete one...." 

Peter was shocked as he heard this, "Incomplete? But why would someone send me a unfinished one..?”

"No idea. And..." He then pointed at the left corner of the painting. "These colours refer to a shade." He then opened his Artist’s Leather bag and took out a shade book. "Ya... You see this shade is a rare Pantone R-05 shade..." 

Suddenly something clicked in Peter's mind. A girl crossing the road. A highway. Shades of fire. R-05 shade.


"Someone's is danger....!" he exclaimed. He then took a map of the city and explained, "The painting clearly refers to a highway. Check the name of the shade. R05. That refers to.." he then pointed to a road on the map, "the junction between Road 1 and Road 5. There are a lot of twists and turns here. I think the painter wants us to stay alert and avoid certain dangers arising in this area...!" he immediately threw orders at his team.

"Alert the toll posts. Get the entire emergency crew ready on highway R05. Get a highway patrol unit and monitor all the rash drivers..!"

 

Now, as he stood watching it, he tried to study its details and where he had been wrong. 

"We missed the main part, buddy." Richard said as he patted Peter's shoulder. “This is the Old Highway R05. It's now renamed as the Bypass Road, however, earlier; this was the main roadway leading to the neighbouring cities. Of course, since the creation of the new one, this is hardly used. That's what the killer took advantage of. Yesterday night, due to heavy rains, no one started out. The roads were absolutely empty. We kept all our patrol units on the new Highway and completely forgot the old one." He then disclosed the details of the Girl.


“The victim’s name is Christina. She’s a reporter, working at the Daily News. Probably headed out of the city, she met with an accident.” Richard said, as he handed over the investigation documents to him. “She was a frequent traveller, used this highway many times in the past couple of months.” Richard said as he showed him the older receipts of the toll posts. “Recently she had reopened the Ronald Industries’ case for investigation."

“It’s the same case that had got a gas leak in our city a couple of years ago, killing many people...right? I remember the case was closed. Why did she re-open it?”


“Maybe she had found some clue suggesting a new investigation. Her colleagues say that she was getting all the important inside information from an informer. ” Richard replied. “The gas leak case is closed. But both the brothers, Ralph and Charles Ronald, are fighting against each other in the court for the acquisition of the property. That case is still going on in the courts. But both the brothers share a good bond. They still attend many events together and often go on vacations together with their families.”

Peter then went through all the documents, but he never found any lead. The post-mortem report suggested that the lady was knocked down by some heavy vehicle, however, the CCTV footages at the toll checkpoints never showed anything on road.

Peter then opened up the enquiry documents that he had received. His earlier two cases had been left unresolved, plus the Senior officials had put up another enquiry on him. Solving this case was very much required for him, as already he was in a much greater trouble.

 

He sat in his room, staying away from the windows. All the curtains were drawn. It was raining heavily outside. Hearing the rain sounds, he panicked. Breathing heavily, he started shivering. He felt as if he was close to death. All the events of the past flashed out before his mind. He couldn’t bear that thought and started crying, unable to control his shivering. He kept closing his eyes and ears, but still the sounds of rain kept echoing around him.

 

A couple of days later, the artist Alfred Atkins called Peter’s team for an exhibition of his paintings. His artworks were quite unique with clear detail and different style of presenting art. Many dignitaries, including the Ronald brothers, were attending the event today, as the artist’s paintings were purchased by many rich people.

As Peter and Richard were going through all the paintings, both the Ronald brothers, Charles and Ralph Ronald, came face to face to both of them.


“Never heard that inspectors are also lovers of art…” Charles said, as he shook hands with Richard and Peter. Alfred was a very close friend of theirs. Almost every painting of his was present in the Ronald Brother’s office.

“Sometimes you need to catch busy people at locations like this…!” Peter said making clear with his statement that he wanted to ask some questions to the brothers.

“We have found out in our investigation that Christina was coming to meet you..” he said addressing Charles. “You had called her to your farmhouse on the outskirts of the city. Could you tell us the reason why she wanted to have a talk with you?”

“I think it was regarding the case she was working on…” Charles confirmed. “She called me up and said she wanted to talk to me. I told her to meet me at my farmhouse. She mostly could have got late because of some work. That’s all I can say.” Charles who was a bit irritated by the questioning at this event, answered a bit harshly.


“Was she supposed to stay back at your house?” Richard asked.

“She was not, but she could have…” Charles’s words were interrupted Alfred who rushed in between and introduced another dignitaries to all of them.

After the exhibition got over, the artist and the inspector were having a general chat on the outside porch. It was raining heavily and water was almost entering the vestibule.


“Your paintings are wonderful, sir…!” Peter said to Alfred.

“Thanks…!” the artist replied, “I’ll be surely holding more exhibitions, but not so soon. The weather’s quite bad in the coming days, lots of thundershowers and rains. Wait a few days. I’ll call you to visit my next exhibition…!” The artist said as he hurried inside the hall, brushing out the small drops of water on his shirt.

 

He sat in his room, staying away from the windows. All the curtains were drawn. It was raining heavily outside. Hearing the rain sounds, he panicked. Breathing heavily, he started shivering. He felt as if he was close to death. All the events of the past flashed out before his mind. He couldn’t bear that thought and started crying, unable to control his shivering. He kept closing his eyes and ears, but still the sounds of rain kept echoing around him.

 

The next day, Alfred was called urgently to the Inspector’s office. Peter had received another parcel. This time, again it was a painting. Peter assumed that this may be the incomplete part of the earlier artwork. This one was also signed with a signature: Daniel’s Kraft.

"Nope..." Alfred declined the moment he saw the painting. "This is not the incomplete part of the painting. This is a totally different painting. This is again a different style. This time, certain curves and colours are used to indicate some sort of a different story." Alfred continued. "The shades are bright at one end and then continue to diminish to monochrome at the other. The entire shades are shown in thin lines. This probably indicates something that is a delicate part of someone. This shade here,” he highlighted that part, “indicates two different colours. They merge together and form one shade which again vanishes here.” he indicated in one area. “There are two-three shades which come here and vanish”. He tried a lot, but couldn’t exactly understand what the artist was trying to depict.


“I’ll require some time to explain what’s in this artwork.” Alfred said as he took a snapshot of the canvas and kept it in his Artist’s Leather Bag.

Later that day, Richard was dropping Peter home while driving under heavy rains after a detailed enquiry with the senior officials about the accidental killings of two civilians.

“I know everything’s gonna be OK.” Even though he was tensed, Peter said, “Mistakes do happen, buddy. But you can’t hamper your future by focussing on a mistake you did in the past. You learn from that errors and you move on. We’re humans after all. We have emotions, we need to act quickly, we need to find solutions quickly for every upcoming problem and while doing all of it, blunders happen. But the important thing is, one must go on. You just have to focus on what you have learned and do the right thing.”

 

He sat in his room, staying away from the windows. All the curtains were drawn. It was raining heavily outside. Hearing the rain sounds, he panicked. Breathing heavily, he started shivering. He felt as if he was close to death. All the events of the past flashed out before his mind. He couldn’t bear that thought and started crying, unable to control his shivering. He kept closing his eyes and ears, but still the sounds of rain kept echoing around him.

 

The next day, Peter and his team were called upon urgently again on Highway R07, another old bypass road interconnecting two cities. A second accident had happened, this time; it was Sir Ralph Ronald himself.

“The car’s bonnet was open. Ralph’s body was discovered at the side of the road. It looked as if he must’ve been knocked down by a truck. He was probably asking for a lift to passer-by’s. It was raining heavily last night. The truck driver must’ve failed to see him and probably knocked him down off while driving. Due to heavy rains, the currents on all toll plazas were off, so unfortunately we don’t have any CCTV footage.” The investigating officer reported the details to Peter.

 

“What are you saying, inspector? Why will I kill my brother? Instead of spending your time questioning me, why don’t you fucking go and find out the real killer?” Sir Charles Ronald, always known for his harsh language, was screaming at Peter.

“He was coming to meet you in your farmhouse, Sir. Co-incidentally, some days ago, a reporter, Christina, who had reopened the Gas leak case, was also coming to meet you. We’ve found some documents in your brother’s car . He was about to put another prosecution case on you. You had done a lot of forgery in the bank documents. You transferred many thousands of currency into your account using forged paperwork. Ralph came to know about this, and how you are fooling him and the company…!” Peter questioned him back, putting all the forged documents in front of him on the table.

Sir Charles was taken aback by the answer.


“We also found an abandoned truck, about five kilometers away from your farmhouse. The front bonnet had blood marks on it. The DNA reports clearly confirm the blood marks match to that of to your brother Ralph. The soil marks on the tyres clearly match to those of Highway R07. The attendees on the toll booths have confirmed that they saw a truck matching the description of that truck we have found. In fact…” Peter said as he looked angrily at the businessman, “I presume you killed Christina the same way.” He then produced evidence, “Christina clearly knew about all your business handlings. She was totally aware of how you are trying to hide your company from the blunders and mistakes that you had done twenty-five years ago, causing a massive Gas Leak in our entire city…!” He then produced another set of recordings, documents, and clips that he had collected from Christina’s apartment.


“You deliberately purchased all the wrong material, hampered all the safety standards and purchased all the downgraded safety materials…! Your industry had never used any safety measurements for protecting all the harmful gases and by-products …! You used all your contacts and closed the case, but Christina found out everything about your past and that’s the reason she re-opened the case…!”

Sir Charles couldn’t believe what he was hearing. It was as if all his life’s blunders were open in front of him.


“The arrested truck driver has confirmed that he got a message and money from your side to finish both of these. That’s how we got the required lead....! ” Peter said as he put all the evidences in front of Sir Charles.

The Businessman had every evidence totally against him. He had no option but to confess to what he had done. He accepted that he wanted to kill Christina and Ralph, but he had never actually killed them. However, all the evidence and the forgery reports were enough to prove him guilty and a criminal.

 

He sat in his room, staying away from the windows. All the curtains were drawn. It was raining heavily outside. This time, as he heard the rain sounds, he never panicked. Breathing slowly, he tried controlling his emotions. Earlier, he used to feel as if he was close to death. All the events of the past used to flash out before his mind. But now, he was cooler than before. He felt his mind was clear. Even though the sounds of rainfall echoed around him, he never felt anything.

  

“Crimes never hide. Criminals eventually land in their own destiny.” Alfred said as he sat with Peter and Richard in the police station. Alfred had still the printouts and mark-ups that he had did on the printout of both the paintings.

“You did good work by helping us…!” Peter thanked Alfred for helping him. “You found out all the hidden secrets in the second painting. Whoever did those artworks had a clear knowledge of the Ronald Brothers. He expressed all of their blunders in his art, using excellent shapes and sizes. But you recognized a good deal of colour shades. You elaborated all the hidden messages in the canvas. That was how we could reach to Charles. Every single detail was nicely elaborated by you. That helped us track down the real culprits.”


Alfred accepted their thanks and left the police station. As he left, Richard called him back to collect his Artist's Leather bag, but Alfred had already left.

The High Court found Sir Charles guilty for all the crimes that he did, including the loss of many lives in the Gas Leakage. He was sentenced to death by the court. The decision was applauded by many people in the entire city, many of which whom had lost their near and dear ones in the incident that had happened 25 years ago.

 

As he sat outside his house, waiting for the rains, he remembered the incident that had happened twenty five years ago. Methyl Isocyanate had spread in all the surroundings. When he heard this, he came back to his home, wearing a mask, but his family was unprotected. He not just saw his family, but many others around turning into vegetative state. The gas caused their internal organs to melt, and the rains helped the gas to spread faster.


Whenever he saw rainfall, he remembered the heinous scenes, his family and all the people suffocating and dying. Slowly he developed a fear for Rain. He started fearing rainfalls. He thought the Rains will again cause him all the harm that he had witnessed many years ago. He avoided going out during rainfalls. He spent most of his time indoors during rainy season.

“Ombrophobia”, was what the psychiatrist had told him. He couldn’t forget the ordeal that he had to face because of the Ronald Brothers, specifically Charles Ronald. He then practised what the Roland's loved the most. He became a master in the art, his drawings were liked by many people. Looking at his wonderful artworks, the Ronald brothers became good friends of him. Slowly he took out all of their personal information. He learned all of their hidden tactics. The Ronald’s shared everything with him. In the meantime, he had helped Christina get the entire valuable inside information about Charles. He then clearly removed Christina first, by using Charles account to transfer money into the truck driver’s account. He remained anonymous, but Charles’s Bank details were exposed. The same happened with Ralph, as Ralph clearly knew how Charles was fooling him. He told the same truck driver to finish Ralph, again transferring money to him from Charles account. He just remained the main person behind the scenes. His intention was to destroy Charles, in which he was absolutely successful. He was the one who had sent those two paintings to Peter. He deliberately painted the 1st painting halfway, as he wanted to portray his life which was always incomplete without his family. The 2nd one was another artwork, in which he exposed all the hidden details of Charles, which he himself explained to Peter. His intentions were successful, as Charles was caught and punished for all his crimes.

Now as he sat outside in the rains, he felt all of his fears getting washed away. 

 

As Peter looked inside the Artist's Leather Bag, he found various documents and accounts information related to the Ronalds. Slowly the entire drama opened in front of him. 

"So it was Alfred Atkins who did all of this...” Peter totally shocked by what he just observed, said. 

"He must've not gone too far." Richard said loading his gun. "We can grab him right now...!" 

"That's no use..." Peter said, as now he came to know that Daniel's Kraft was a perfect anagram of Alfred Atkins. He knew that by now Alfred or whatever his name was, must’ve changed his appearance as well, so that he can easily escape.

 

Some kilometres away, Daniel Kraft had shaved off his beard, dyed his hair and changed his clothing. Looking more like a teenage boy, he stood in line to board a train to move out of the city. He never opened his umbrella even though it was raining heavily. 

He was no longer afraid of the rain. 

 

Ombrophobia

 Ombrophobia is the fear of rain- a fairly common anxiety disorder seen in kids and adults alike. 

Some might fear very heavy rain that accompanies storm-like conditions (heavy winds, thunder and lightning); still others might be afraid of even a little light rain or drizzle.


Heavy rains are known to cause harm to life and property through landslides, building collapses, major power failures, and other calamities. All these negative experiences can cause one to fear rain, particularly after having directly experienced them first-hand. Rains often lead to viral diseases or the spread of bacteria, which the person overseas as a fear to himself.


There is no known medicine for this mental illness. Phobias generally heal themselves when a person overcomes his fears and fights them, or destroys the other things which generated this phobia inside him.


THE END

 

                                                                        


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