It was way past midnight when Vishal's phone rang. He had been wide awake, waiting for the call.
"Dhara, hey, did you get it?" he spoke up fast as soon as he picked up the call.
"Yes. Guess what, all three videos were uploaded in Bangalore, through an Internet Café" Dhara replied in a serious tone, hiding her excitement about finding the location finally.
"All three from the same place?" Vishal was surprised.
"Yes. A little odd, given that a criminal of this scale wouldn't want to leave such a careless track of his movements," Dhara answered thoughtfully.
Vishal heaved a sigh and asked, "Exact location?"
"I will text that to you. And, actually, I checked it against Mitra's current address; you know, just in case. It is around six kilometres away from her house. This whole thing seems really messed up to me," Dhara mused
Thoughts were firing in Vishal's brain. He regulated them for a moment and said, "Thanks a ton Dhara. Anything else you noticed?"
"Yeah, whoever uploaded those videos knows his cyber security, systems and networks theories well. It took me two days to track them. Had he not used the servers he is currently on, I could have caught him in an hour."
"This would help us a lot Dhara. Thank you so much. I will get in touch with you. If possible, can you send me a report sort of thing? Or whatever possible to substantiate your findings. The police would ask for it."
"Sure. I will email it you."
As soon as he received the location, Vishal set out in exploration on his rented bike. Driving through the deserted streets of Bangalore's suburbs, he oddly felt his mind go blank.
What should I be expecting? Will it be closer to Mitra's location? Would I run into the culprit?
He tried to focus through the clutter of incoherent thoughts. The lane leading to the Internet Café was very dark and narrow, with shops that were closed down for the day, and silent houses on either side.
It could have been the late hour of the night combined with the purpose of the exploration that created the eerie atmosphere in that alley. Revving his bike through the silence of the neighbourhood, Vishal came to a halt at the middle of the alley.
A worn-out complex of shops stood on his left. It was a two-storied building and only the ground floor seemed to be occupied by stores. Squeezed between a novelties store and a bike repair centre lay the entrance into the complex. A dark corridor beyond the entrance, whose end wasn't visible, stared ominously at him.
Vishal felt his inquisitiveness kick in strongly and he got down his bike, walked into the narrow corridor of the ground floor, with a set of unidentified stores on either side. The Internet Café was at the furthest end of the corridor, and as expected, it was closed.
Vishal lit up the flashlight in his phone and studied the surroundings and every corner of the place. There were no CCTV cameras there. He came out and repeated the same process, only to realize that the place was in obscurity.
There were no streetlights except for one at the start of the alley and no CCTV cameras in the vicinity.
There were many problems with the location of the source of the videos.
First, there was no guarantee that the perpetrator lived in that neighbourhood. Chances are high that he chose the location owing to its discreteness.
Second, the Internet Café was looked so outdated that Vishal doubted there would be any video recordings or logs of the people accessing the computer systems there.
Third, the culprit could have masked himself properly to avoid any detection or notice from others, a mask of trust and acquaintance being the scariest of them all.
After much thought, Vishal returned home. He knew he had to get the officials involved to find out the answers.
He couldn't sleep that night. If Mitra was indeed dead, her body should have turned up somewhere, especially after the much publicized murder of her. That was what the psychopath who killed her would have ensured to do the minute he murdered in reality: glorifying his actions by displaying the mortifying remains of his work.
Yet, Mitra was nowhere to be found. It was beyond any known crime pattern. Was the criminal waiting for a much grander time for getting attention?
Vishal drifted in and out of sleep, something he had gotten used to in the past few days. As day broke, he rushed through his chores to get to the Police Station.
"I got the place the videos were uploaded," he declared to the Raghavan as soon as he sighted him at his desk.
"How?" Raghavan was surprised. "I had a call with the Cyber Cell and they said they need another day."
"Yeah, I know they are overloaded. But this is a very complicated situation and luckily I have friends who are experts in this area. It took me some time to get them on board, but they got it," Vishal clarified.
He explained everything in the shortest time he could, delving into the details of the Internet Café, the precarious circumstances of its location and how a thorough interrogation of the café's owner was much required.
Raghavan called for a meeting with the rest of the team, dialled up DSP Sandeep's cell phone and informed him of the developments, chalking out a plan of action. He then instructed Basava to follow him and Vishal to the said Internet Café.
As they drove to the location, Raghavan called up the local police station near the café to ask for a couple of constables as backup, just in case they ran into the culprit who might try to dash out for an escape.