The next evening, Dhrubo Sen returned to Harrison Road before sunset.
The rain had stopped, but the streets still carried yesterday’s dampness. Water collected in potholes reflected tram wires above like broken veins across the sky.
He stood near the old public telephone booth mentioned in the police records.
Or rather—
what remained of it.
The booth no longer worked. Rust had consumed its metal frame years ago. Torn posters covered the cracked glass panels.
No one used it now.
A paan seller nearby glanced at Dhrubo curiously.
“You’re staring at a dead thing, babu.”
Dhrubo turned slightly.
“How long has this booth been closed?”
The man thought for a moment.
“Fifteen… maybe sixteen years.”
“And before that?”
“People used it all the time.”
The detective removed the folded newspaper clipping from his coat pocket.
“Do you remember a woman named Meera Mukherjee?”
The paan seller squinted at the photograph.
Then his face changed.
Old recognition.
“She used to come here.”
Dhrubo’s eyes narrowed.
“How often?”
“Many nights.”
The answer arrived too quickly to be invented.
“She would stand there after the shops closed… sometimes crying… sometimes just staring at the road.”
“Alone?”
The man hesitated.
“Mostly.”
Mostly.
Dhrubo noticed words people tried to hide inside other words.
“When was the last time you saw her?”
The paan seller pointed toward the far side of the street.
“That night.”
Dhrubo crossed Harrison Road slowly.
Vehicles roared past, spraying dirty rainwater onto the pavement.
The old man’s finger had pointed toward a narrow building squeezed between two shuttered shops.
A watch repair store.
The signboard above it hung crookedly:
“Ghosh & Son Clock Repairs”
Closed.
Dusty.
Forgotten.
But one thing caught the detective’s attention immediately.
Behind the dirty display glass stood a wall clock.
Stopped forever at 9:17.
The shop owner arrived an hour later.
An elderly man with cloudy eyes and nicotine-stained fingers.
“You’ve come about the woman, haven’t you?”
Dhrubo looked at him carefully.
“You recognized the photograph.”
The man unlocked the shop door slowly.
“Some faces refuse to leave places.”
Inside, hundreds of clocks surrounded them.
None synchronized.
Different times ticked in different corners like trapped moments refusing to move together.
“She came here that night,” the old watchmaker said quietly.
“Alone?”
Again—
that hesitation.
“No.”
Dhrubo’s gaze sharpened instantly.
“With whom?”
The old man avoided his eyes.
“I never saw his face clearly.”
“His?”
“Yes.”
The detective remained still.
“What happened?”
The watchmaker lit a lamp near the counter.
“They argued.”
“About?”
“I couldn’t hear properly. Rain was loud.”
He paused.
“But I remember one sentence.”
The room suddenly felt smaller.
“What sentence?”
The old man swallowed slowly.
“The man said…”
Outside, thunder echoed faintly.
“…‘If your husband learns the truth, it will destroy him.’”
Silence.
Only clocks ticking.
Hundreds of tiny heartbeats trapped inside the shop.
Dhrubo walked toward the stopped clock near the wall.
“Why did this one stop at 9:17?”
The watchmaker stared at it for a long time.
“That was the exact moment she ran out of the shop.”
“And the man?”
“He followed her.”
“Did they go toward the station?”
“Yes.”
Dhrubo touched the cold glass of the clock gently.
“What happened after that?”
The old watchmaker whispered:
“I heard a scream.”
The detective turned sharply.
“But when I ran outside…”
The lamp flickered.
“…the road was empty.”