Flat No 309

 

Rains lashed the city. It had been raining heavily for the last two days and it was no different that evening. The city of Bangalore had almost come to a halt due to continuous rains. Majority of office goers had preferred work from home amid the heavy rains.  Amid this non -stop pouring, the third-floor lift of Lopez tower opened and a crisply dressed young man walked out. He looked around to find the chronology of the apartment numbers. After getting an idea of the sequencing, he walked to his right and continued walking towards the apartment he wanted to visit. a second later he was standing in front of the door of Apartment No 309. He looked around and then pressed the door bell and took a deep breath. After waiting for some time and not finding any reply, he pressed the door- bell again. There was no reply.

He removed his cell phone from his pocket and checked the address. He standing in front of correct apartment. He again pressed the door- bell. Finally, there was a sound from the other side. He could hear the sound of the latch opening up. The door opened up slowly and a head peeked out from behind it. It was a middle -aged gentleman.

“Yes?” the occupant of the apartment asked.

“Good evening, sir. I am here to check the Refrigerator as part of the annual maintenance check.”

The middle- aged gentleman seemed confused looking at the young man.

“But I wasn’t informed by the company about this visit.”

The young man seemed perplexed.

“Sir, the information was sent on to your wife’s registered number with the company. Request you to check with her.”   

“She didn’t tell me anything?” the middle- aged man replied back.

“Sir, it will not take much time. I will just check few parameters and then tick mark all the questions in our checklist form, Take your signature and leave.”

“Give me minute,” the middle- aged man replied and abruptly closed the door.

The young man found the apartment owner’s behavior extremely rude but he kept his calm.

The sound of the lift door opening was heard by the young man. An old lady walked out and looked at the young man. She stared at him for a second and then walked left towards her apartment. The young man waited for the apartment door to open up.

Suddenly the door opened up and middle- aged man told him to come in.

A second later, when the young man was inside, he looked around in search for the way to the kitchen.

“May I?” he asked the middle -aged man.

“Sure.”

The young man walked towards the kitchen as the apartment occupant walked behind him.

 They reached the beautifully designed and sleek kitchen. The big refrigerator stood its ground near to the entrance of the kitchen.   

The young man kept down his bag and open the fridge door and surprisingly found the fridge not cool.

“There’s hardly any cooling. It seems as if the fridge was put on just sometime back.” The young man commented.

The middle- aged man stood there confused

The young man observed that there was hardly any food item inside the fridge.

“How often do you defrost it?” the young man asked as he continued to inspect the chiller.

“Ah, sometime two weeks.”  The middle- aged man answered confusingly.

“Two weeks?” the young man looked surprised.

“Sir, you need to defrost every three days.”

“Actually, I don’t know much about the kitchen. It’s my wife who handles everything. She’s gone to her aunt’s house.”

“Can you get me a towel,” the young man asked him.

“Sure, just a second,”

The middle- aged man walked towards the bedroom and after two minutes when he was back with a towel, the young man stood there in the kitchen with a gun in his hand.

“Hands up dude.”

The middle- aged man was almost in shock and was about to fall down in despair.

“Don’t do anything stupid?”

“No. No. I am not doing anything.”

The middle- aged man threw the towel on the ground and put his hands up.

“Okay. Man. Now take me to the cupboard where you keep all the valuables.”

“Turnaround and walk to the cupboard.” The young man shouted.

“Don’t do anything. I am taking you to the cupboard.”

The middle-aged man turnaround with his hands up and walked slowly towards the bedroom. The young intruder slowly walked behind him keeping a sizable distance.

Two minutes later both of them were standing in front of a transparent cupboard. The young man pushed the middle-aged man to the side and opened the door and started to throw the clothes out and then opened up the drawer.

Out of nowhere, a small gun was placed on head.

“Hands up young man. Dare you move.”

“Caught red handed.” Said the middle- aged man.

The young man was shocked to no belief.

He put his hands up. “What do you mean caught red handed?”

“Yeah. Yeah, there were lot of complaints about you in and around this locality. Finally got hold of you.”

“Who are you?” asked the young man.

“Inspector Rakesh Sharma.”

“So, you are not the actual occupant of this house?” the young intruder asked.

“The actual occupants are now at the flat in which that old lady entered into some time ago.”

“So, this was a set up?”

“Very much young man.”

“How did you do it?”

“Simple. We got hold of the AMC head of the company who would give up the addresses of the apartments where in the AMC servicing was scheduled.”

“For the last three months, we had received complaints that a young man disguised as AMC service person of a particular brand would enter houses and rob them off their valuables.”

“And, how did you know which house was on my target this time?” the young intruder asked.

“It was very simple.” Said the policeman and continued, “This was the only address left for AMC service for this year. You have covered all the balance houses.”

“We were waiting for you to come here for the last four days and you did arrive today on the fifth day.”

“Very neat work, Inspector.” Said the young man.

“Thanks to your overconfidence.”