Chapter 1: Oporichito Aashonka

Satyaki had been examining tissue samples under the microscope for nearly four hours when the door to his laboratory swung open without warning. Two men entered without knocking or announcing themselves, which immediately told him they belonged to some government department that had grown too comfortable with authority. The taller one wore a navy blue shirt that looked like it hadn't been ironed in days, while the shorter man kept his hands in his pockets, scanning the room as though cataloging everything for a report.

Neither of them smiled or apologized for the interruption. The tall one simply said, "Satyaki Bakshi?"

Satyaki straightened from the microscope, already irritated by whatever this was going to be. He had three more samples to process before the end of the day, and the university's administration had been breathing down his neck about delayed reports since last month. "Yes. Who are you?"

"Detective Inspector Ghosh. This is Sub-Inspector Roy." The tall man pulled out a police identification card, holding it up just long enough for Satyaki to confirm it was legitimate before tucking it back into his pocket. "You need to come with us immediately."

"I'm in the middle of work." Satyaki gestured at the microscope and the neatly arranged slides on his desk. "Whatever this is about, you can schedule an appointment through the university office—"

"This isn't a request," Roy interrupted, moving closer to the desk. He had the kind of face that looked perpetually suspicious of everyone. "There's been a murder. The victim's last phone call was made to your number approximately three hours before the body was discovered."

That stopped Satyaki mid-sentence. He tried to think if anyone had called him this morning, but his phone had been on silent since he arrived at the lab at seven. "I didn't receive any call. You must have the wrong number."

"We don't make mistakes about phone records," Ghosh said, though his tone suggested he wasn't entirely convinced of his own certainty. "Pack up whatever you're working on. You're coming with us to the crime scene now."

Satyaki wanted to argue further, but the way both men positioned themselves near the door made it clear they would physically remove him if necessary. He had enough experience with bureaucratic stubbornness to know when pushing back would be pointless. Switching off the microscope, he covered the samples and locked his desk drawer, wondering what kind of mess he was about to walk into. The police didn't drag forensic consultants out of their labs unless something had gone seriously wrong with their investigation.

The walk to the unmarked car parked outside felt uncomfortably formal. A few students stopped to stare as two plainclothes officers escorted their professor across the campus, which would definitely fuel some creative rumors by tomorrow morning. Satyaki climbed into the back seat while Ghosh took the driver's position and Roy settled into the passenger seat, still refusing to offer any additional information.

As the car pulled out of the university gates and merged into Kolkata's chaotic afternoon traffic, Satyaki pulled out his phone to check his call log. The screen showed nothing unusual—two missed calls from his department head about a faculty meeting, one from a former student asking about recommendation letters, and several spam calls he had ignored. No unknown numbers. No calls from anyone who might have ended up murdered three hours later.

"There's no record of any call to my number," he said, holding up the phone so Ghosh could see it in the rearview mirror. "Your information is wrong."

"The victim called you at 9:47 AM," Roy said without turning around. "The call lasted forty-three seconds. We have the phone company's records."

"Then someone else has a number similar to mine, or your records are corrupted." Satyaki scrolled through the timeline again, checking the exact time they claimed. Nothing. "I'm telling you, I didn't receive any call at 9:47."

Ghosh navigated around a slow-moving bus, honking twice at a cycle rickshaw that drifted into their lane. "We'll sort that out at the scene. Right now, we need you to see something before too many people contaminate the evidence."

That phrasing bothered Satyaki more than he wanted to admit. Police usually didn't worry about contamination unless they were dealing with something that required forensic precision. Most murder investigations in Kolkata involved straightforward domestic disputes or robbery attempts gone wrong, where the physical evidence was secondary to witness statements and basic detective work. If they were concerned about preserving a crime scene, this case was already unusual.

The car turned north, moving away from the modern commercial areas toward the older parts of the city where colonial-era buildings still dominated the landscape. Satyaki recognized the route—they were heading deep into North Kolkata, where narrow lanes barely allowed two cars to pass each other and every third building seemed ready to collapse from centuries of neglect. These neighborhoods had resisted every attempt at urban renewal, maintaining their stubborn identity while the rest of the city transformed around them.

"What's the victim's name?" Satyaki asked, trying to extract at least some basic information.

"You'll find out when we arrive," Roy said, which was less an answer and more a polite way of telling him to shut up.

Satyaki gave up asking questions. He watched the streets change as they drove deeper into the old city—tea stalls replaced coffee shops, hand-painted signs took over from illuminated billboards, and the buildings grew closer together until the sky was just a narrow strip of gray above them. Whatever he was about to walk into, the police clearly wanted him to see it without any preconceptions or prepared responses.

The car finally stopped in front of what had once been an impressive mansion but now looked like it was slowly surrendering to time and weather. The facade showed patches of missing plaster, revealing old brickwork underneath. Iron gates hung slightly askew on their hinges, and the compound wall had several visible cracks. Two uniformed police officers stood guard at the entrance, keeping away a small crowd of curious neighbors who had gathered to speculate about what had happened inside.

Ghosh led the way through the gates while Roy stayed close behind Satyaki, making sure he didn't decide to leave. The front door was open, revealing a dim interior that smelled of old wood and accumulated dust. As Satyaki's eyes adjusted to the lower light, he began to notice details—antique furniture lined the corridor, covered in layers of dust that suggested no one had bothered with cleaning in months. Old paintings hung on the walls, their subjects barely visible through darkened varnish. A wooden staircase rose to the second floor, its railing ornately carved but showing signs of termite damage.

Walking through that corridor felt like stepping backward in time. The mansion belonged to an era when wealthy families built these sprawling homes to showcase their status, before space became too expensive and everyone moved into apartment buildings. Someone had maintained this property just enough to prevent total collapse, though not enough to make it comfortable or modern. Satyaki found himself wondering why anyone would choose to live in such a place when renovation would cost more than demolition and rebuilding.

Ghosh started up the staircase, which creaked under their weight. The second floor was darker than the first, lit only by whatever sunlight managed to filter through grimy windows. More antiques crowded the landing—a bronze statue of Saraswati, several wooden chests with tarnished brass fittings, a grandfather clock that had stopped working decades ago. The police had set up temporary lighting near one of the doors at the end of the corridor, where another uniformed officer stood guard.

"The study," Ghosh said, gesturing toward the illuminated doorway. "Try not to touch anything until you've seen everything."

Satyaki stepped through the door, wondering what exactly he was supposed to see that required dragging him out of his laboratory in the middle of a work day.

The study was larger than Satyaki had expected, though most of the space was consumed by floor-to-ceiling bookshelves packed with volumes that looked like they hadn't been disturbed in years. A single window on the far wall let in weak afternoon light, supplemented by the harsh glare of police lamps that cast strange shadows across everything. The air was stale and carried that particular smell of old paper mixed with something chemical that Satyaki couldn't immediately identify.

The body sat in a high-backed chair at an ornate wooden desk positioned near the window. A middle-aged man, probably in his early fifties, slumped forward slightly as though he had dozed off while working. He wore an expensive-looking kurta that was badly wrinkled, and his hair showed streaks of gray that suggested he had stopped bothering with dye some time ago. From where Satyaki stood, there were no visible wounds, no blood, no signs of any violent struggle that would explain why he was dead.

A medical examiner was crouched beside the chair, checking the body's temperature and examining the positioning of the limbs. She looked up when Satyaki entered, giving him a brief nod of acknowledgment before returning to her assessment. Her movements were efficient and practiced, the kind that came from years of examining bodies in various states of decay and violence.

"Natural causes?" Satyaki asked, though he already suspected the answer would be more complicated.

"Unlikely," the medical examiner said without looking up. "Rigor mortis suggests death occurred between six and eight hours ago. No obvious trauma, no petechial hemorrhaging in the eyes, no foam around the mouth. But the lividity patterns are wrong for someone who died sitting in this position."

That was professionally interesting, though Satyaki still didn't understand why the police had dragged him here specifically. He moved closer to the desk, careful to step around the marked areas where evidence technicians had been working. The desk itself was a beautiful piece of craftsmanship, probably from the early twentieth century, with intricate carvings along the edges and brass fittings that had tarnished to a dull green.

What covered the desk surface, though, made Satyaki stop moving entirely.

Dozens of black-and-white photographs were spread across the wooden surface in what looked like deliberate arrangement rather than random scattering. Every single photograph featured the same man at different ages and in different locations. Young and thin in some pictures, older and more substantial in others. Standing outside buildings Satyaki recognized from old Kolkata. Sitting in what looked like a modest flat somewhere. Walking down streets that no longer existed in their photographed form.

His father. Byomkesh Bakshi.

Satyaki had seen most of these photographs before in family albums, though several were unfamiliar to him. Someone had collected images spanning decades of his father's life, creating a visual timeline that started with Byomkesh as a young man and ended with photographs from the early 1990s. The sheer number of pictures suggested obsessive collection, the kind of effort that took months or years to accumulate.

But that wasn't the strangest part. Red strings connected various photographs to newspaper clippings that were also spread across the desk, pinned down by small weights to keep them from shifting. The strings created an elaborate web that covered the entire surface, linking faces to headlines, dates to locations, creating connections that someone had spent considerable time mapping out. It looked like an investigation board, the kind detectives created when trying to solve complex cases with multiple suspects and interconnected evidence.

Satyaki leaned closer, reading some of the newspaper clippings. "Missing Businessman Found Dead in Locked Room—1976." "Unexplained Death of Judge Raises Questions—1981." "Art Theft Remains Unsolved After Two Years—1983." Every clipping reported on cases that were either unsolved or had suspicious circumstances. Several had his father's name mentioned in the articles, describing how Byomkesh Bakshi had been consulted by police or how he had investigated the matter privately.

"Who was this person?" Satyaki asked, gesturing at the body without looking away from the desk.

"Rajarshi Mitra," Ghosh said from behind him. The detective had remained near the door, watching Satyaki's reactions carefully. "Industrialist. Inherited his family's textile business about fifteen years ago, though from what we've learned, he mostly let his younger brother run the actual operations. Lived alone in this mansion for the past decade after his wife passed away."

Satyaki traced one of the red strings with his eyes, following how it connected a photograph of his father from 1978 to three different newspaper clippings about cases from that same year. Someone had created a system here, developing theories about connections that might or might not actually exist. "Why was he researching my father's cases?"

"That's what we hoped you might be able to tell us," Roy said, moving to stand on the opposite side of the desk. "According to his household staff, Mitra became obsessed with Byomkesh Bakshi's investigations about six months ago. Started collecting every piece of information he could find—old newspapers, police records, court documents, private letters. He filled multiple notebooks with timelines and theories."

The medical examiner stood up, removing her latex gloves. "I'll need to do a full autopsy to determine cause of death. Based on preliminary examination, I'd say poison is the most likely explanation, though which poison and how it was administered will require laboratory analysis."

Poison. That would explain the lack of visible trauma. Satyaki had worked enough poisoning cases to know they often looked peaceful from the outside, the violence happening internally where it couldn't be easily observed. If someone had poisoned Rajarshi Mitra, they had done it carefully enough to avoid immediate detection.

"Show him the notebooks," Ghosh said to Roy.

Roy walked to one of the bookshelves and pulled down several thick notebooks, their covers worn from repeated handling. He brought them back to the desk, opening the first one to reveal dense handwriting that filled every page. Dates, names, locations, all meticulously recorded. Someone had cross-referenced newspaper articles with police reports, creating comprehensive timelines of cases that Byomkesh had investigated decades ago.

Satyaki flipped through the pages, recognizing several case names he had heard his father mention in passing over the years. The notebook devoted entire sections to cases that had never been publicly solved, speculating about what actually happened and why Byomkesh had or hadn't pursued certain leads. The handwriting showed signs of increasing agitation as the entries progressed—letters became larger and more erratic, words were underlined multiple times for emphasis, question marks appeared in margins next to statements that seemed to trouble the writer.

"He was trying to solve old cases?" Satyaki asked, though the answer seemed obvious from the evidence.

"More than that," Ghosh said. "Based on what we've found so far, Mitra believed your father had deliberately left certain cases unsolved. That Byomkesh Bakshi had discovered the truth but chose not to reveal it for reasons Mitra was trying to understand."

That was an accusation Satyaki had heard before in various forms throughout his life. His father had always operated according to his own moral code, which didn't always align with conventional ideas about justice or legal procedure. There were cases where Byomkesh had found the truth and then decided the truth didn't need to be made public. Cases where he had protected someone instead of exposing them. It had been part of what made him legendary, though also part of what made him controversial among more traditional detectives and legal professionals.

Satyaki examined another notebook, this one focused specifically on a case from 1985 involving the death of a prominent lawyer. Mitra had written extensive notes about inconsistencies in the official police report, highlighting details that didn't match witness statements. Red ink marked passages where Byomkesh's involvement was mentioned, with annotations asking why he had withdrawn from the investigation before it concluded.

"Your father was protecting someone in that case," Ghosh said, apparently reading over Satyaki's shoulder. "At least, that's what Mitra believed. He spent weeks trying to track down everyone who was involved, conducting his own interviews, reviewing old evidence. The man was determined to prove something."

"And someone killed him for it," Satyaki said, looking back at the body slumped in the chair. The positioning made more sense now—Rajarshi Mitra had died while working at this desk, surrounded by his research into cases that someone clearly didn't want revisited. Whoever had poisoned him had let him die in the middle of his obsession, which suggested either cruel irony or deliberate symbolism.

Roy pointed at one of the photographs connected by multiple red strings. "That picture there—your father standing outside the courthouse in 1978. Mitra had circled it in red marker in three different notebooks. Whatever he was trying to prove, that photograph was significant to his theory."

Satyaki studied the image more carefully. His father looked younger there, probably in his forties, wearing the simple white dhuti and kurta he had always preferred. The courthouse steps behind him were crowded with people, though the photograph's quality made it difficult to identify anyone except Byomkesh clearly. Nothing about the image seemed particularly remarkable, just another moment from his father's life captured on film.

"Has anyone contacted Mitra's family about his death?" Satyaki asked.

"He had a daughter and a younger brother," Ghosh said. "Both have been informed. The daughter is returning from Bangalore tonight. The brother was here earlier, though he claimed he hadn't spoken with Rajarshi in several weeks. According to him, the two had a falling out about Rajarshi's plans to demolish this mansion and build a commercial complex on the property."

That explained the condition of the house—if Rajarshi had planned to tear it down anyway, there would be no point in maintaining it. Satyaki wondered how long the mansion had been deteriorating while family arguments prevented any decision about its future. These old North Kolkata properties were worth significant money as real estate, though preservationists usually fought hard to prevent their destruction.

"The daughter knew about his research into Byomkesh's cases?" Satyaki asked.

"She said he had become withdrawn and obsessive over the past six months, spending all his time in this study instead of managing his business interests," Roy said. "She tried to convince him to see a therapist, but he refused. Told her he was close to understanding something important about the past."

Close to understanding something important. Those were dangerous words when dealing with old secrets that people had worked to keep buried. Satyaki looked at the web of red strings connecting photographs to clippings, trying to see what pattern Rajarshi Mitra had been chasing. The cases spanned decades, involved different types of crimes, and seemed to have no obvious connection except for Byomkesh's involvement in investigating them.

Unless the connection was precisely that—Byomkesh himself. Cases where he had found something, understood something, and then chosen to step back rather than expose the full truth.

"You said the victim called my number this morning," Satyaki said, returning his attention to the immediate question that had brought him here. "What did he want?"

Ghosh pulled out a small evidence bag containing a phone. "We're still trying to unlock it. But yes, at 9:47 AM, Rajarshi Mitra called your number. The call lasted forty-three seconds according to our records."

Satyaki pulled out his own phone again, checking one more time to be absolutely certain. No calls at that time. No missed notifications. Nothing that would explain why phone company records showed a connection that his device had no record of receiving. Which meant either the phone company's database was corrupted, or something more complicated was happening with call routing that he didn't fully understand.

"Let me see the body again," Satyaki said, moving around the desk to get a better view of Rajarshi Mitra's position in the chair.

The medical examiner had finished her preliminary work and was packing up her equipment, leaving Satyaki space to observe. From this angle, several details became more apparent. The victim's posture wasn't quite as relaxed as it had first appeared—there was a slight tension in the shoulders that suggested he had stiffened before rigor mortis set in fully. His head tilted to the left at an angle that looked uncomfortable, almost as though he had been trying to turn away from something at the moment of death.

But what caught Satyaki's attention was the positioning of the right hand. It rested on the desk surface among the scattered photographs, but the fingers weren't curled naturally the way a relaxed hand would settle. Instead, the index finger was extended straight out, pointing deliberately at one specific photograph in the elaborate web of red strings and clippings.

The photograph from 1978. The one Roy had mentioned earlier. Byomkesh standing outside the courthouse steps.

"Has anyone moved his hand since the body was discovered?" Satyaki asked.

Ghosh came closer, looking at what Satyaki had noticed. "No. The servant who found him this morning said he was positioned exactly like this. We photographed everything before the medical examiner began her assessment."

Satyaki crouched down to examine the hand from a lower angle. The finger definitely pointed at that specific photograph, extended with enough deliberateness that it couldn't be coincidental. Either Rajarshi had been studying that picture at the moment of death, or he had intentionally positioned his hand that way while dying, leaving a message for whoever discovered him.

"He was trying to tell us something," Satyaki said, more to himself than to the detectives. "That photograph is significant to whatever he discovered."

Roy moved to examine the picture more closely, careful not to disturb the other evidence on the desk. "What's special about this one? Your father attended dozens of court proceedings over the years. This could be from any number of cases."

"The date matters," Satyaki said, standing up again. "1978 was significant for some reason in Mitra's research. He kept coming back to cases from that year according to what I saw in the notebooks."

Ghosh pulled out a small notepad from his pocket, flipping through pages he had written earlier. "Mitra conducted interviews with several retired police officers who had worked cases in 1978. One of them mentioned that Byomkesh had been consulting on a case involving a suspicious death, but withdrew before providing his final conclusions. The officer said your father seemed disturbed by something he had discovered."

That sounded familiar in a vague way, though Satyaki's memory of his father's work from the late 1970s was fragmentary at best. He had been young then, more interested in school and friends than in whatever mysteries his father was investigating. It was only later that he began paying attention to Byomkesh's cases, and by then many of the older investigations had faded into family history.

"You mentioned that Mitra had been trying to contact me," Satyaki said, remembering what Roy had said earlier about the phone call. "How long had he been attempting to reach me?"

"For about three weeks," Ghosh said, consulting his notes again. "He hired two different private investigators to locate your current address and workplace. Neither of them succeeded before his death."

Satyaki felt a chill that had nothing to do with the room's temperature. "Why couldn't they find me? My address is on university records. My office location is public information."

"One investigator said you seemed to have deliberately obscured your personal information," Roy explained. "No social media presence, unlisted phone number, official address listed as a PO box rather than your actual residence. He said it was unusual for a university professor to be that inaccessible."

That was true enough, though Satyaki had never thought of it as deliberate obscurity. After his father's death, he had simply wanted to establish his own identity separate from the Bakshi name, which meant keeping a low profile and avoiding the kind of public attention that had always surrounded Byomkesh. Apparently those habits had made him difficult to locate for someone conducting private research.

"So Mitra was determined to speak with me specifically," Satyaki said, trying to understand the dead man's motivation. "About what? Cases from forty years ago that my father investigated?"

"We don't know," Ghosh admitted. "That's partly why we brought you here. We hoped you might recognize something in his research that would explain his obsession."

Satyaki moved closer to the body again, studying the details he had missed during his initial observation. The medical examiner had mentioned something about the lividity patterns being wrong for someone who died in this sitting position, which suggested the body might have been moved after death. But if that was true, why would someone reposition Rajarshi at his desk with his finger pointing at that specific photograph?

Unless the killer wanted the photograph to be noticed. Wanted investigators to focus on that particular image and whatever case it represented.

As Satyaki examined the victim's left side, something caught his eye that made him lean in closer. The sleeve of Rajarshi's kurta had bunched up slightly around the wrist, creating a small fold of fabric that partially concealed the left hand. Through the gap in the material, Satyaki could see something metallic clutched in the palm.

"There's something in his other hand," Satyaki said, pointing it out to Ghosh.

The detective moved quickly, calling over one of the evidence technicians who had been photographing other parts of the study. Together they carefully moved the sleeve higher, revealing what Rajarshi Mitra had been holding when he died.

A small brass key. Old-fashioned in design, with an octagonal head that showed signs of tarnish and wear. The shaft was shorter than modern keys, with an unusual double-notched pattern at the end that looked like it belonged to a specialized lock mechanism.

Satyaki felt recognition hit him like physical shock. He had seen that exact key design before, though not in years. The octagonal head, the specific proportions of the shaft, the unusual double-notched end that made it incompatible with standard locks.

"Bag it as evidence," Ghosh instructed the technician, who produced a small plastic evidence bag and carefully extracted the key from the dead man's grip.

"Wait," Satyaki said, his mind racing through implications he didn't fully understand yet. "Let me see that key."

Ghosh held up the bagged key, letting Satyaki examine it through the clear plastic. The octagonal head had a small engraving on it, too worn to read clearly, but the shape and design were unmistakable. Satyaki had inherited a wooden box from his father's estate after Byomkesh died, a small lacquered box with brass fittings and an intricate lock mechanism. The box had been among his father's personal effects, locked and impossible to open because the key had been lost years before.

He had kept the box anyway, storing it in his apartment along with other items that held sentimental value despite being functionally useless. Every few years he would take it out and examine the lock, wondering what his father had kept inside and whether it was important enough to justify forcing the box open and destroying the antique mechanism.

The lock on that box required a key with an octagonal head and a double-notched shaft. Exactly like the one clutched in Rajarshi Mitra's dead hand.

"This key," Satyaki said slowly, trying to keep his voice steady. "It's not common. The design is from the early twentieth century, used for specialized locks that were expensive to manufacture. Very few examples still exist."

"How do you know that?" Roy asked.

"Because I own a box with a matching lock," Satyaki said. "It was part of my father's estate. I've kept it for years but never been able to open it because the key was missing."

The study went quiet. Even the evidence technicians stopped what they were doing, understanding that something significant had just been revealed.

Ghosh looked at the key in the evidence bag, then at Satyaki, then at the dead man slumped in the chair with his finger pointing at the 1978 photograph. "You're saying this victim was holding the key to your father's locked box when he died."

"I'm saying it appears to be identical to the lock I'm familiar with," Satyaki corrected, though the probability of two such unusual keys existing independently seemed astronomically low. "I'd need to verify it against the actual lock to be certain."

"We'll need that box as evidence," Ghosh said immediately.

Satyaki nodded, already anticipating that requirement. If Rajarshi Mitra had somehow obtained the key to Byomkesh's locked box, then whatever was inside that box must be connected to the research that had gotten him killed. The old cases, the obsessive investigation, the desperate attempts to contact Satyaki—it all pointed toward something his father had locked away decades ago, something important enough that Rajarshi had died trying to understand it.

"The box is at my apartment," Satyaki said. "I can bring it to the police station tonight."

"We'll send officers with you to retrieve it now," Ghosh said. "This is evidence in a murder investigation. We can't wait until tonight."

Satyaki looked at the dead man one more time, at the extended finger pointing toward his father's photograph, at the key that had been clutched in a death grip. Whatever Byomkesh Bakshi had locked away in that box, Rajarshi Mitra had found the key to opening it. And someone had killed him before he could discover what was inside.

The truth his father had chosen to keep hidden was demanding to be revealed now, whether Satyaki was ready for it or not.