View from a Window

I was sound asleep when I was abruptly disturbed by a sound outside the window of my first- floor apartment. It was eleven thirty and I had just gone to bed an hour prior to that. Still in a daze from my sleep, I stumbled over to the window and looked outside. To my dismay, I saw two men involved in an argument right below my window. I could not hear their conversation, but, all of a sudden, one of the men took a hammer out of a backpack and hit the other on the head. The man fell down with the impact of the blow and lay still. The assailant threw down the hammer and looked around frantically. I quickly drew back behind the curtain of my window and concealed myself more thoroughly so that I was not visible to him.

After ensuring that he had not been observed by anyone, the man took to his heels. As he passed under a street- lamp, I got a good look at him. As soon as he had disappeared from view, I went to the telephone and called the police to report the incident. After a short interval, I was transferred to a policeman who happened to be on duty. I described the incident and he promised to call an ambulance to attend to the man. He was true to his word, and within a few minutes, an ambulance arrived on the scene, followed by a car with two men inside who were presumably police officers. One of the policemen, meanwhile, took out a mobile phone and started dialing. The personnel from the ambulance looked at the man on the ground who seemed to be critical and made arrangements to take him to the hospital.

When my phone started ringing, I realized that the policeman was calling me and I answered my phone. At the other end was a police inspector who was in charge of the case. He introduced himself as Joe D’Costa, the inspector who had been assigned the case. He wanted to come up and speak to me. I agreed and he came in with a sergeant in tow. I told him I was Mark Fernandes, a writer by profession. He asked me numerous questions about myself and about what I had seen. He wished to know if I knew the two men who had been involved in the argument. He also asked me if I could identify the attacker and I told him that I had a clear view of him when he made good his escape. The inspector then told me he would send an artist in the morning so that I could give him a description of the fugitive. If my description was adequate, the artist would come up with a sketch of the man and they would be much closer to catching him.

Once the inspector realized from his interrogation of me that I was a respectable man and merely happened to be a witness in the case, he unbent sufficiently and gave me some information. The victim of the attack had died soon after reaching the hospital. Now that their investigation had taken on the hue of a murder inquiry, they were taking a more serious view of the matter. They were conducting inquiries in the area to determine whether anyone had seen the fugitive fleeing from the scene. As he was speaking to me, I was troubled by a niggling sense that I was overlooking something crucial to the case. I had a vague sense that I should know the person I had seen under the street-lamp, but for the life of me I could not recall where I could have seen him. The inspector left soon after that, promising to keep me posted about the case. Apparently, I had made a favorable impression on him, and so he was well-disposed towards me and quite inclined to provide me details about their investigation as it was under way.

The morning came and brought with it the police artist. He went through numerous pictures with me to determine various features of the suspect’s face so that he could come up with a sketch resembling him. The whole exercise was a time-consuming one and took up the better part of the morning. By the end of that time, we had a sketch with a good likeness of the suspect in the case. As I was a writer and worked from home, I could afford to spend that time to help the police with their investigation. Later in the day, I received a call from the inspector who informed me that they had identified the victim. He was employed at a local store where they had a copier and computers from which people could get online access. According to his employer, he was a good worker and always came to work on time. The inspector also told me that they were circulating fliers with the sketches of the suspect so that people could contact the police if they happened to catch a glimpse of him.

I still could not recollect where I had seen the suspect before, so I gave up the effort for the time-being. As I had numerous errands to run, I decided to go out in the evening and attend to them. I went to the bank which was at some distance from my home, and where I was an infrequent client as I did not conduct many transactions there. When I entered the branch and went to the counter for my work, I remembered where I had seen the suspect on earlier occasions. He was employed as a clerical staff member at the branch and was usually quite efficient at his work. I inquired about him with the other members of staff and was told that he had not reported to work on that day.

As soon as I finished my work at the bank, I called up the inspector and told him about the suspect and his place of employment. He promised to go over and make inquiries about him and his friends. I returned home and attended to my work till it was time for bed. The following day, I managed to get a great deal of work done as there were no interruptions and i was quite satisfied that I had managed to make up for the time lost on the previous day. At the end of the day, I received a call from the inspector who said that he had found out where the suspect lived, but he was missing from his apartment. He was pursuing his leads regarding his friends at the bank and elsewhere.

The following day brought with it better tidings. The inspector was quite jubilant when he called me in the evening. It turned out that he had managed to trace the suspect to a friend’s apartment and had placed him under arrest. Under interrogation, he had confessed to the crime and had explained the circumstances leading up to the attack. The victim had been a friend of his, and they had come up with a plan to withdraw cash from a few accounts at the bank. With the collusion of the clerk, the victim was supposed to present cheques for withdrawal. They had been planning to carry out these transactions, but at the last moment, the victim had lost his nerve and had decided not to go through with it. This had prompted the attack by the suspect. The inspector hoped to take the case to its logical conclusion and thanked me for my assistance on the case.