Clink…Cling…Jack and Jill…Jack and Jill…up the hill…up the hill…rang in Wilsons’ head. It had been a really long day. He had been haunted by this jingling rhyme for a week now.
He sat in his armchair which was torn at edges and the fabric – faded. Inspite of no ‘aesthetic’ pleasure and value, it had been preserved by detective Wilson for years now as a part of his family’s heritage, passed onto him by his grandfather.
His grandfather was last of what he had in the name of ‘family’. But he too had died about five years back – just after Wilson had completed his graduation. It had been a year since Wilson was located, his talent recognized and him being recruited as an undercover agent.
Wilson rocked in his mold-ridden inheritance, back and forth, making a creaky din adding to the uncanny silence of the isolated mansion presently inhabited by cobwebs, spiders, lizards and lonesome Wilson.
The darkness helped him concentrate. The darkness prided itself in rendering the demented demeanour to the magnanimous manor. Wilson sat in the sprawling hall – sweating and ruminating. “Would he be caught?”
There was a heavy gush of blood. Dr. Silvia Fernandes was now finding it challenging to stand next to one more ugly body – face open, literally! With rising pulse and pressure, she now longed to retire from her day’s work.
It took great deal of expertise to turn – dull, ugly fat ducklings into beautiful swans. She had been accepted to pursue neurology at the University of Pennsylvania, one among the top most colleges of the world, but, she denied and opted for grafting at the same.
It’s like being offered dollars but accepting pennies. She was a blue-eyed blonde. Had been in the profession for three years and now was the most acclaimed surgeon.
She had been the black sheep of her family, where everybody had been an entrepreneur and was making big monies she in her early career had none. It took her almost 10 years after high school to where she now stood. But now she had magic in her hands.
She made all ugly humans; photogenic to say the least. She caressed the dead skin with such passion and precision that it seemed to respond to her – perfectly manicured hands and trimmed nails.
Jack and Jill were very well known twins, though not by their real names – Victor and Viola. The last of the lineage that survived in the Kennedy’s family.
While Jack single handedly manning the trust and the family’s empire that Peter Kennedy had setup in 1928. The great grandson now had situations to deal with.
He was a developer; he bought, built and sold lands, apartments, bungalows and skyscrapers. He adored his sister. He had seen her grow.
How at the tender age when guys played football, he inspected sights, signed paper, approving and rejecting proposals and tenders. How he wished to provide his sister all the love that she missed because of dead parents.
The CEO of the Manhattan branch walked in. Victor was jostled out of his reveries. There were problems; not only in Manhattan but also in Venice and London.
He had entered into an alliance with an insurance company on terms of providing interest with every client that Victors’ company convinced. The Insurance Company turned out – a cover for the Albanian syndicate.
They resources were dwindling and now the stock holders were threatening Victor.
Viola was driving back from her classes. Suddenly a car smashed into her bonnet. The blinding headlights, the gruesome pain in her head made it arduous for her to open her bloody eyes. .
Her cornea had cut open due to the mighty bang of her forehead with the wheel. Blood gushed out. Her ear seemed to have gone numb. She felt someone dragging her out of the blood stained driver’s seat and hauling her in something which seemed to move.
After which she had no recollection of what so ever happened.
“Viola ‘Jill’ Kennedy missing” – was the cover story splashed across all newspapers and journals. Some said perhaps it was a lovers’ spat or she had gone off on her self-realization detours. But Jack knew better.
A few days later a bruised Jill appeared with a reason of sudden adrenaline rush that took her skiing to places with no signals or radars. She was quoted in a paper to have willfully disconnected herself from the world.
She ‘seemed’ same but something about her was ticking Wilson off. He had been assigned the case five years back. When the Kennedy Empire’s ‘emperor’ – Paul died. Wilson thought it was rather mysterious.
What had then set the clock in his head ringing was why an old, successful and handsome entrepreneur needed a skin graft. But this was one string that had been confidential.
Working as virtual part of the Interpol he had sources that revealed all behind the scene stories. Back to the present was something similar. He somehow felt that though it was the same Jill yet there was something terribly wrong, something amiss; something he knew but consciously could not point it out.
Then there was a connecting link – that nursery rhyme. He had found it every time he was near the Kennedys’ and eventually it had observed it had been somehow put in his ears when Paul died and twice recently.
Once when Jill went missing and when she came back. But he had not noticed how a rhyme fitted anywhere in this.
He must have been aware when it was being played. But the rhyme had been so carefully timed that Wilson had not realized its presence but was just sub-consciously discerning of it being hummed.
He rocked in his arm chair and recalled the rhyme as it hung in the air. The first four lines had been forced to memory as a kid but it was later in the phrase that caught his attention. “Jack and Jill went up the hill to fetch a pail of water, Jill fell down and broke her crown and Jack came tumbling after”. Then it continued, Wilson was stressing his memory to recall the precisely exact words…”Up got Jack and home did trot”…what came next, “As fast as he could caper, he went to bed but bound her head” and what was that hymned and rhymed after that. Yeah! “He went to bed but bound her head with vinegar and brown paper”.
That was it. It clicked. He had hit the bull’s eye. He had penned the difference. Now he had to understand the significance of words that were so placed.
He one moment doubted the worth of the poem, one time he even doubted his sanctity as to whether he had really heard it or was just hallucinating. But his field trainer had taught him that nothing can renounce reason so he was now bent upon digging out the reason.
He started searching for clues. He went from the official crime site and then to what he perceived to be the crime execution place. The work had been neat. He could find no investigative or so called official clues but trails. It was his specialty.
He could see through certain tricks which others in his department missed. He started checking account details and call records. He checked visitor’s register and picked fingerprints of the most regular persons. He checked surveillance camera and dustbins.
He went through files and made notes. Something caught his eye. Dr. Silvia had always run a tight schedule. But in the past two months she had taken long vacations in the most expensive of resorts and yet there on her accounts was no deflation.
With fewer cases, her account balance seemed to be boosting. There was one transaction that was unidentified. The amount credited was minor but neither the reason nor the creditor had been mentioned.
Wilson went through statements and realized that Dr. Silvia seemed to have no alibi at all for the day of Viola’s abduction. She was supposedly lamenting about late work hours and others retiring sooner in her testimony.
This was enough for Wilson to get going.
The poem now made sense. The brown paper had been tissue grafting. The prints from the register matched Victors’. The DNA analysis cleared remaining suspicion.
The girl at the mansion was not Viola. Who goes skiing being right-handed and comes back as a left -handed person.
Viola had been gruesomely murdered by Victor and his girlfriend Clara. Though Victor had loved Viola yet the amount that would be delivered by the insurance company was enough to act as a catalyst while Clara played with his sentiments.
Victor had carefully arranged for Viola to be kidnapped by the mafia who were ready to stoop down to any level for their money. He then bought Silvia off to give Clara a new face.
The clause in Kennedy’s will; was what had pushed Victor to the edge; to kill his sister. The clause said if Viola was ever to be kidnapped the money would automatically shift in Victor’s name.
Victor had planned Viola to just be threatened and sent back after. But the plan had got a little out of hand when the mafia became impatient and slit Viola’s throat. The Mafia big men cared little about money. They killed Viola to threaten Victor.
It was then Silvia was brought into the picture. Wilson had proved it all to the jury, which sentenced Victor to life imprisonment and Clara to 17 years of strenuous work and fine.
Though Victor had never anticipated Jill’s death yet he had played with fire and was held responsible by the instinctive honorable jury.
Jack and Jill did go up the hill of success together but when Jill came down this time she ended up dead and a new being with her face.
Cherry Agarwal
