The Tranquil Predator ✔️

Chapter 23

Arjun's Pov

"Menon! You take your team and find everything about that convenience store owner Raghu. His childhood, parents, relationship with neighbours, follow him all day to know where he goes", I commanded a team of officers."Arif! You do the same with your team. Take as many people as you need. Guys, remember to wear casuals. Don't interrogate wearing your police uniforms"

"Check where these guys were during the time of all the crimes. Don't ask them directly, they will get suspicious. Ask people close to them. Like I said, families, neighbours, or even friends. Interrogate without making it sound like an interrogation. Make it look like you are an inquisitive guy or you are their childhood friend who has come to meet them after decades. No one rests until I have got a report of all this information. You all may leave", I finished. The entire team immediately set to work.

As for me, I retired to my cabin. I had to go through the victim reports again. There must have been something that I missed. Closing my eyes, I started racking my brains. I started rummaging through the huge mental library I had. Everything that I had learnt up till now whether it was back at the academy or in my previous cases was stored in that library.

Okay, so there are four types of serial killers. Mission-oriented, the ones that feel they are removing the bad bugs of the society and doing us a favour by killing them. They usually go after people of the weaker sections namely homeless people or prostitutes.

Then there are the visionary ones. The ones who think they are being compelled to kill by God or the devil or some higher entity like that. The last two are the tricky ones. Our suspect has to be one of the two. The thrill-seekers, the ones who kill for fun. They love the fact that the police give them attention and have everything planned, they usually use weapons and once they are finished with their victim, they hide the body and move on to find a new victim.

I had a theory our killer was this kind, but that theory changed after Neethu's murder.

Finally, we have the power and control ones. These enjoy a victim's terror. It makes them feel stronger and more dominant. The 'Tranquil Predator' was definitely the fourth type. He didn't hide the body, and even in the latest victim, that is Neethu, there were defensive wounds. Very less because it didn't take much time to kill her, but they were there. This meant, he wanted them to fight back because he wanted to show how strong he is and how easily he can overpower her. Now coming to the first victim, that is Menon's son, the defensive wounds were much more. Probably because he was new at this, there was maybe a small bit of conscience inside him that stopped him from killing the kid. But he did it anyway, and he felt better. So he continued, and by the time he reached Neethu, his killing method was much more refined. He didn't hide the body, no he would leave them where they were because he wanted to show people what he did and how strong he was.

Not to mention our 'predator' is a psychopath. So that means killing them doesn't affect his mental state one bit. They don't feel scared, they don't feel guilty. They can easily go around slitting someone's throat and then go back to living their social life. These people have two faces. Why do I suspect Praveen and Raghu? They both fit the description of the killer I came across. They are slightly taller than me and work with meat because I caught the scent of meat when I talked to both of them. Also, I saw Raghu limping in front of me. I remember shooting the killer in the thigh when I tried to stop him that night. The bullet just grazed by but it did injure him. Was Raghu limping because of a dog bite or my bullet wound? When we were talking on the bus, Patricia even mentioned not liking him. She said she didn't like the way he looked at her, she felt scared. When it comes to sixth senses, women are better than us, so is it possible he would have some ill thoughts in mind when he would see her.

Now killers who like to show power often rape their victims before killing them. The reason is not lust, it is just a show of dominance for them. So is it Raghu?

"Excuse me, sir, may I ask you a question", Officer Bhatt said as he interrupted my flow of thoughts. He was new and my assistant.

"Yes, Bhatt?"

"We already have 2 suspects, why can't we just arrest them and interrogate them here?"

"Because we don't know whether they are the killer or not. If we arrest them now and turns out both of them are innocent then it would be a waste of our energy and it would even caution the real culprit that is out there. So we need to be extra sure before we arrest someone. We need to arrest the predator and only him", I replied with a serious look.

Bhatt nodded his head and scurried away.

Now, from current behaviour we can say Raghu falls in the suspicious zone then what about Praveen? Other than his height and the odour of meat, there is absolutely nothing suspicious about him. I have no proof against him. And that just infuriates me.

How long will these people take to get the reports?

Now if our killer belongs to the fourth kind then they should probably have some kind of dark history, be it child abuse, trauma anything. That is one of the reasons why they think they need to show their dominance to their victims.

I stared up at the night sky as I thought about how were we going to deal with the killer when we catch him. I had this urge to punish him for all the lives he took. I wanted to shoot him dead, but I knew the law would not allow that. My job was to catch and jail him. The court would do the job of punishing.

"Oo its gonna be a long night", I sighed.

A/N:

So, I did a lot of research, before writing this chapter. So it might seem a bit informative. Y'all better comment and vote! :D