Chapter Thirty Two

Shiva’s description came to Shakthi’s mind sequentially. The last thing that he recollected was, the car which was used to attack Shiva was registered in Maharashtra! It rang a bell somewhere. What was it? Why was he feeling this way?

He turned around and looked over to the desk. The last call for Mumbai bound flight was made just a few minutes back. Couple of minutes remained before the boarding closed. He saw a guy walking towards the desk. The guy was in a blue jean and red & white tee shirt. He was very muscular and had trained his muscles well. He was limping and carried walker to support him. Poor guy must have fractured his leg; Shakthi told himself. He looked away from the desk and into the bunch of youngsters who were approaching the desk. He found no one who matched Pankaj’s description.

Disappointed, Shakthi thought of walking towards the exit. He wanted to check out the car in the car park. Before he started striding away something came up to his mind and he stopped. He turned around and looked over at the check-in desk again. The guy in jean was standing with his back to Shakthi. Something about the guy was not right. He was carrying no baggage with him. Shakthi pondered whether that was all that bothered him. But he necessarily need not carry any baggage to travel to Mumbai. Shakthi felt he was beginning to hallucinate. He started walking. He stopped again. He felt it was something else which had caught his eye. He turned around. The guy in jean was now walking again and was about to enter the plane’s tunnel. And Shakthi knew what was wrong!