A POEM FOR THE DEAD

South Mumbai | 2:14 a.m.

Rain stitched delicate patterns on the windows of Palmview Towers, its sound gentle but insistent, like a poet wrestling with the weight of a final verse. The city beyond was caught in a hushed trance. South Mumbai’s faded art deco facades loomed in the mist, watching, waiting. Streetlights flickered, and for a heartbeat, the world stood still.

Inside Flat 701, the silence felt denser, more deliberate. The sort that wraps itself around old words and older regrets. The living room smelled of ink and vintage paper, faintly seasoned with something colder — metallic, almost chemical.

At the heart of the room sat a mahogany writing desk, polished but worn with time, and perched atop it like a shrine, a Remington typewriter from another era. A page had been rolled halfway through its platen. The ink was still drying.

Beneath the desk, crumpled like a closing stanza, lay the body of Anna Sebastian.

She wore a charcoal shawl loosely draped over a black kurta, her fingers curled, as though she’d been reaching for a final phrase. There were no signs of violence. No blood. No disruption. Her eyes, open and glassy, stared through the ceiling, as if reading a verse only she could see.

Beside her lay a single page, typewritten.

A poet dies, not with a scream,
But inked within another’s dream.
Look between the silent lines —
The story ends before it rhymes.

Above her, the ceiling fan spun in lazy circles. The paper fluttered.

Crime Branch HQ, Mumbai | 8:47 a.m.

Detective Arjun Roy sat slouched behind his desk, black coffee cooling in his hand, the lines around his eyes deeper than his years suggested. A former journalist, Arjun had traded headlines for handcuffs, though he still scanned the world like it was a story waiting to be decoded.

His office smelled of dust, paper, and a hint of old cologne from someone long gone. On the desk before him, a case file rested like a trapdoor waiting to open.

“Anna Sebastian,” muttered Inspector Mukesh Kulkarni as he slid the file across. “Ring a bell?”

Arjun looked up. “She wrote under a few aliases. Used to follow her work. Brilliant mind. Bit of a recluse.”

“She didn’t answer her maid this morning. Maid called the landlord. He used the master key. Flat was locked from inside.” Mukesh leaned back, always more comfortable with paper trails than digital footprints.

“No sign of forced entry,” he added. “No wounds. Toxicology’s pending. But this…”

He handed over the poem found at the scene.

Arjun’s gaze lingered on the final line.

The story ends before it rhymes.

“Could be metaphorical. Or a warning,” he said. “Get me a list of everyone she was in touch with over the last few months.”

Flat 701, Palmview Towers | 10:03 a.m.

The apartment felt like a mausoleum for thoughts. Arjun stepped in, the air dense with a stillness that hadn’t lifted since dawn. The walls were lined with framed poetry, some faded, some etched in brass. First editions were tucked into carved shelves. A silver raven sat among ink bottles like a sentinel.

The Remington stood on the desk, page still in place.

He moved slowly, eyes absorbing the room. Books on symbolism, grief, rhythm. Some frames had no photos — a quiet erasure. He glanced at the bedside table. A single Mont Blanc pen.

“Just one?” he murmured. “Odd.”

Poets usually hoarded pens like sacred relics. Arjun pulled open the desk drawer and flipped through a worn diary.

Empty. Pages torn out.

Mukesh stood near the window. “Who the hell still types on a machine like that in 2025?”

“Someone who doesn’t trust clouds or hard drives. Someone who believes ink is forever.”

Crime Branch HQ | That Afternoon

An envelope arrived. No return address. No stamps. No fingerprints.

Inside: a new poem. The same weight of paper. The same ink.

The ink has bled, the silence cracks,
One is gone — don’t turn your backs.
This isn’t murder, it’s a draft —
The first of many, finely crafted.

Mukesh exhaled through clenched teeth. “So it’s a series now?”

“They’re not messages,” Arjun said quietly, “they’re chapters.”

Lower Parel | 4:22 p.m.

The scent of fresh paper hung in the air as Arjun stepped into The Scribble Nook, a stationery store crammed with notebooks, fountain pens, and memory.

Behind the glass counter sat Miriam Fernandes. Late forties. Spectacles perched low. Her gaze, tired but sharp, met his.

“She said someone was watching her,” Miriam told him. “Didn’t say it plainly. Poets don’t. Called him ‘a man who rewrote her silences.’”

“Any idea who he was?”

“She didn’t give names. And I stopped asking. Anna was… intense. A genius. But not easy to love.”

Arjun’s eyes wandered to a small oiling kit on the counter. “You own a Remington?”

She stiffened. “Yes. I don’t use it anymore.”

“Still write?”

“Digitally. Professionally. But no anonymous poems, if that’s what you’re thinking.”

“Why not?”

“Because I sign everything I write, Detective. Call it a disease.”

Arjun’s Apartment | 11:55 p.m.

The rain had stopped, but the silence in Arjun’s apartment felt louder. His desk was strewn with press clippings and old reviews. Photographs of Anna at award ceremonies, lectures, launches.

And then — five years ago — nothing.

Gone from public life. No interviews. No sightings.

He flipped through her last anthology, Dark Ink, Bright Bones. On the inner flap, in sharp pen:

He watches. He waits. The final verse is mine.

He stared at it, trying to place the voice behind the ink.

Colaba | 9:15 a.m. — Next Morning

Jonathan D’Costa looked every bit the successful publisher — polished, unshaken — but his voice faltered at her name.

“Anna was… exceptional. And increasingly paranoid. She showed me the letters. Poems. Clever. Sinister. She believed someone was mimicking her.”

“Did she name anyone?”

“Once. She said, ‘The one who understands rhythm too well to be caught out of step.’”

Mukesh raised an eyebrow. “Sounds like another poet.”

“Or a literary critic,” Arjun added.

Jonathan nodded. “Or both. But if it is a writer… it’s someone who understands her work intimately. Someone who knows how she thinks.”

3:44 p.m. | New Letter

Another envelope. This time, black. The lines within were heavier, bolder.

They write in red, not black or blue,
A tale begun by what she knew.
Betrayal blooms where ink once ran —
This was the Prologue. Find the plan.

Mukesh looked at Arjun. “They’re taunting us.”

“Not taunts,” Arjun said. “Breadcrumbs. A trail left in couplets.”

Bandra | 10:13 p.m.

The bungalow was cloaked in shadows. Natasha D’Mello’s name was still on the gate, but the windows were dead-eyed and dark.

Arjun knocked. No answer. The house had been abandoned — not neglected, but emptied.

“She was Anna’s closest friend,” he said over the phone to Mukesh. “Literary executor. Had access to unpublished work, recordings.”

“And now she’s missing?”

“Either she disappeared,” Arjun said, peering into the darkened halls, “or someone ensured she did.”

Something glinted on the porch — a single petal, pale and deadly.

Cerbera odollam. The suicide tree.

He pocketed it carefully. Symbolism in ink was one thing. But this was real.

Midnight | Arjun’s Study

The board in Arjun’s study looked like a manuscript bleeding out. Poem fragments pinned like wounds. Photographs. Notes. Questions with no answers.

The killer was composing something. A narrative written in blood and metaphor.

Each victim a page. Each poem a line.

He flipped through Anna’s 2012 interview again. A quote circled in red ink:

“Poetry is a weapon. And I write like I’m at war.”

Arjun leaned back in his chair, lit a cigarette, and watched the smoke curl toward the ceiling.

The war had begun. And the first shot had been a stanza.

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