Solitude

RKM Hospital is situated in the south of Calcutta. It is run by a
trust which depends on charity for its survival. Despite this the
hospital is well-run and reliable. Each ward is created from donated
money and carries the name of the donor. The pharmacy is always
well-stocked and medicines are available at subsidised rates. The
outdoor department has eminent doctors attending to patients coming
from far and wide
It was six pm now. The last visitors to the hospital had just left the
gates. Suddenly a black Alto scurried into the compound. Two women, one
middle-aged and the other young got down. One could see through the
tinted glasses of the car that there was someone else inside other than
the driver. Apparently she was the patient. The two ladies who were
spoken of before got into conversation with the junior doctors in the
emergency. After a while the bearers carried the patient into
emergency. The woman in question was unconscious. The doctors examined
her thoroughly. She also had a CT scan done on her. What the doctors
told the two ladies was already known to them. The woman who was
seventy-eight years old had suffered a mild stroke. In the process of
the attack she had slipped and fallen. Her left wrist was fractured and
would have to put in a cast when her health allowed it.
The next few days were eventful for the patient, Mrs Kinkin's
relatives. Having been widowed six months after marriage she really had
no one to call her own. She lived with her brother and her nephews and
nieces were doing all the running and fetching for her. But Kinkin was
still not healthy enough to know what was happening around her. She was
in the Female Medicine Ward. Her room had seven more beds all of which
were occupied. Most patients were senior women like her but there was a
teenager too. This girl had been admitted for a piles operation. The
doctors were trying very hard for Kinkin. But her response to medicines
was slow.
On the sixth day after admission the doctors put Kinkin's left arm in a
cast. She was now able to sit upright. However she was too weak to go
to the bathroom. When her relatives came to visit her she would often
complain that the doctors were not looking after her. She complained
that the teenager who was pretty looking was getting all the attention.
She was particularly cross with Dr Jaya a lady who examined her every
evening. That night she was allowed to go to the bathroom by
herself.
Tragedy struck next morning. The pretty teenager was found dead in her
bed. There were no fingerprints anywhere on her body. Yet she seemed to
have been strangled, probably in her sleep. The other occupants of the
ward were aghast. Most of them were too ill to be shifted elsewhere or
too poor. It was decided that a policeman would be posted outside the
ward which was on the third floor. However it was of no use. Another
woman was found dead in Kinkin's room the next day. Like the teenager
she was on the younger side. Now everyone was too scared even to think.
Kinkin's nephew wanted her to be shifted elsewhere but she said it was
okay. Others were not so brave. Two ladies shifted to a local nursing
home. So there were four patients in Kinkin's room. The police post was
doubled. All gates were shut at ten pm. Yet it was of no use. Another
of Kinkin's fellow patients was found dead the next morning. Unlike the
other victims she was old. She was in fact eighty-five years old and
very frail. The hospital authorities were now desperate. They thought
of a plan. Two lady policewomen took admission in Kinkin's ward and
were given beds in the same room where she was staying. The plan
worked.
At exactly three am one of the policewomen ( who was pretty) felt
something heavy on her neck. Upon her signal all lights were switched
on. The culprit, to everyone's shock was-Kinkin. She confessed to the
previous three murders. The murder weapon was her plaster cast with
which she strangled the sick and weak women. The motive behind all the
murders was the same. Kinkin wanted to be the centre of attraction. She
wanted that everyone must attend to her and no one else. Whenever she
felt anyone was getting more attention than her she killed that person.
Like this she had murdered three perfectly innocent women. Doctors
examined Kinkin and decided that she would be sent to a lunatic
asylum.