A Killer Among Us

by Ushasi Sen Basu

  By the end of the evening all the women were left wondering what Pallabi’s niece was really up to, and whether she had a niece at all.

  This was the woman Nandana was now going to confront, and demand the truth from. As she raised her finger to press the familiar bell that rang the Für Elise; Nandana hoped that the madness that had overcome many of them in the aftermath of the murder would rule over the tongue of the most consummate liar she had ever encountered.

  It would be hilarious, if it wasn’t deadly serious.

  *****

  Ira rang the doorbell of 603. She was more hopeful of a warm reception at this door because she was invited.

  ‘I’m coming, I’m coming!’ quavered Mrs Ghoshal’s voice as she approached the door. She wrenched the door open and peered at Ira through the chain-enclosed gap.

  ‘Good, good, just a minute.’ The door closed and opened again.

  ‘This is why I always prefer to keep the door open; I don’t have to keep rushing back and forth. But since that day….’

  ‘Yes, everyone’s got a little jittery.’

  ‘Come in.’

  Ira had miscalculated the time and arrived half an hour later than intended. She only had about fifteen minutes to make her escape if she wanted to be at work in time.

  She glanced at her phone discreetly and wondered if she should explain. Ira could return for a longer chat at a later date. Any discussion here now, whatever small talk the little old lady would engage in, would only delay her. It might be best not to begin at all.

  ‘Are you running late?’ Mrs Ghoshal materialised suddenly bearing a tray with tea things and a plate of mouth-wateringly aromatic fish chops.

  ‘Er…well, maybe just one cup of tea. Then I have to run. Sorry, should have planned my morning better.’

  ‘Doesn’t matter, dear. Have a chop, I’m famous for them. I put a pinch of saffron in it. Gives it a piquant flavour. My secret ingredient. I make them up in a big batch and freeze them. Hurray for modern technology, eh? I fry a few up as and when I have company. Those on your plate are the last of their lot, I shall make some more soon. Be careful, it might be hot.’ Mrs Ghoshal concluded, a trifle breathless.

  Ira elected to let the smoking snack cool down and sip the tea instead.

  ‘How’s the tea?’ Mrs Ghoshal watched Ira like a hawk.

  ‘Good, good.’

  ‘So…tell me what’s going on in your life?’

  ‘Nothing much, aunty,’ she said, putting her cup down again. The chop was still steaming. ‘Very busy with work….’

  ‘Yes, you’ve been busy at home, too, I hear?’ Mrs Ghoshal asked brightly.

  Ira transferred her attention from the plate to her hostess’s innocent face in a trice.

  The old woman continued in that twittering, sweet way she had. ‘Asking questions here and there, they tell me. Getting people’s backs up, good and proper!’

  ‘I am asking questions, yes,’ Ira said, firmly. ‘Some people’s backs might be up, others are quite happy to chat.’

  ‘No doubt you have your reasons, my dear. I’ve heard all about how some of our neighbours thought it would be expedient to try to pin it on you. Let’s not talk about that. I was just wondering…if you heard anything interesting yet?’

  Ah, so the crafty old lady had an agenda. She wasn’t surprised, though she felt a trifle hurt. There was no such thing as a no-strings-attached-fish chop in this godforsaken place, she thought bitterly.

  ‘Where is Kedar-da? He said he would be here.’

  ‘Yes, yes…he stepped out to get some mishti for you.’

  ‘Ah, okay.’

  The two women sat studying each other. Amiably enough.

  Ira prodded her chop with her spoon and watched a gush of steam escape. She sipped on her tea again.

  Mrs Ghoshal indicated the chop with a freckled hand. ‘It was a much-loved dish when the family was all together.’

  Mrs Ghoshal seemed to go off somewhere inside her head for a few moments. Ira watched with curiosity, then dismay, as her companion’s face got more and more downcast. Just as she was about to intervene with some attempt at chit chat, Mrs Ghoshal visibly shook herself out of the mood and turned back to her with sharp eyes.

  ‘And…what did you think? About…er…the man in the lift?’

  Ira put her tea cup down with a clink. The question had startled her. Mrs Ghoshal sat blinking at her like a wizened old owl behind her powerful glasses. She looked tiny in her vast, cushiony chair that didn’t match the rest of her furniture. Ira wondered what the story was behind the chair. An old-age indulgence so she could watch her TV in comfort perhaps, judging by the convenient angle and distance the chair occupied from the television set. Or most probably a relic from a bigger house, the patriarch’s chair now handed down to this frail, bird-like person who sat perched in it like she didn’t truly belong.

  Ira prodded at her chop to buy herself some time. She took a decision. If the old bird was in the market for gossip, she was bound to be able to trade her something interesting as well.

  ‘Yes,’ she confessed, ‘I heard quite a few interesting things.’ Ira smiled, mischievously. ‘Tell me what you heard and I will too.’

  Mrs Ghoshal looked like she was about to laugh it off, but decided against it. ‘Oh dear, we’re talking like spies in war time!’

  ‘Yes, exciting, isn’t it?’ Ira laughed in a similarly playful tone.

  ‘Unfortunately, I know very little except for what was decided at the meeting and what Kedar told me the next day, and the little bit I’ve gleaned from the TV news. The news anchors sounded quite hysterical! Now they’re all cut up about that bad little girl who’s run off….’

  Mrs Ghoshal paused and darted a sharp look at her guest. ‘People are hoping it’s you, you know. It will be a neat little wrap up of a lot of things…some of the ladies here would rather you stay in other buildings stealing other women’s husbands. Like you would even want to steal those husbands of theirs. Big old bellies and hair sprouting out of their ears. I don’t know, but back in our day, men seemed more attractive; or perhaps it’s because my hormones are all dried up….’

  Ira felt a mix of mounting horror and amusement. Were they to talk of dried-up hormones now? Would she be asked about the state of liquefaction her hormones were in next?

  She heaved a sigh of relief when Kedar walked in briskly with a white box of sweets enclosed with rubber bands.

  He disappeared into the kitchen and came back with two sweets on a quarter plate and a spoon. A shon papdi and a chomchom.

  ‘Sorry, I’m late.’

  ‘No problem, only that I’m running a little late myself, my ride arrives in ten minutes or so.’

  ‘Ah okay. With Ma’s permission, in case I was interrupting an important part of your tête-à-tête… I’ll speak freely now, since we’re behind closed doors.’ Kedar seated himself on the opposite sofa.

  ‘You expressed surprise that they were all coming after you. I said it was not surprising in the least and you looked offended. Let me explain what I meant.’

  His mother said nothing, but looked intrigued by what Kedar had to say. She had grudgingly realised from years’ experience that if Kedar had something to say it would probably be worth listening to.

  ‘This building…it’s been around for about fifteen years. It comprises people of a similar milieu, all middle-class folk. There’s a certain way that people do things here.

  And then there’s you. Not only are you a single working woman, you don’t even have the decency to have a room-mate to keep an eye on you; or should I say, keep you in line? To be occasionally asked about you, or to turn her against you if required. You are a terrible itch they can’t scratch, especially with the help of that other anomaly, your landlady. Trust me, I know. I’m another anomaly.’

  Ira looked up questioningly to see the amiable smile melt off his mother’s face. She shot him a look, as if to say, ‘Don’t’.

  After a pause, he conti
nued, and the tension eased in the room because he had switched back to Ira. ‘They want you to stay under the radar. Not be too…what is the word you youngsters use? “In your face!” It fits their idea of what is seemly and appropriate in this world. To them any anomaly in their universe can provoke surprisingly strong reactions. It will only take the slightest provocation to report to the police that you are showing undue interest in what is a police issue. Do not tangle with the police on this. Stay well enough away from all of this because they can be an unpleasant lot themselves.’

  He paused. Ira had decided against the chop, beaten to bits as it was by her nervous spoon. It lay on the plate, disintegrated, and now no doubt as cold as it had been hot fifteen minutes ago. She set it down, untasted, on the glass-centre table with a finality. She was tired of Kedar’s speechifying.

  ‘Ira,’ he almost barked this at her, to get her complete attention back. ‘Believe me when I tell you this: hell hath no fury like middle-class morality scorned.’

  ******

  As the tinny Für Elise played, Nandana hoped that Pallabi’s husband Dilip didn’t answer the door. Yes, it was crucial he wasn’t home. Nandana was prepared for such a contingency with a teacup, to pretend she had come over for some sugar. She did, actually, so either way it wouldn’t be a wasted trip.

  Pallabi answered the door as was expected. Her husband and children would have left by mid-morning.

  She was still in her housecoat and looked around the door at her to show she wasn’t up for company just yet.

  Nandana gritted her teeth in what she hoped was a bright smile and said, ‘Can I come in?’

  Pallabi grimaced prettily and said, ‘I’m afraid not. I don’t have time, I’m going out.’

  Nandana smiled harder. ‘Just for five minutes. Perhaps you can get ready while we talk, surely you won’t go out looking like that!’ Aha! She was channelling her inner Pallabi. Well-known fact about her friend was, not only was she a desi Pinocchio, she could also reduce people to dust with one well-crafted comment.

  Pallabi blinked and stepped back. She was probably stunned by Nandana’s forcefulness, on any other day the latter would have been halfway down the corridor murmuring apologies by now.

  Murder madness, Nandana smiled to herself.

  She slipped in through the small gap the woman had grudgingly kept open and closed the door behind her.

  Pallabi had already turned and walked back in, petulant and something else. Was she nervous? Nandana wondered.

  Nandana plonked herself down on the squashy leather sofa and propped her temple against an idle hand.

  ‘So, where are you off to?’

  ‘Hmm?’

  ‘You said you were going out?’

  ‘Oh yes, shopping you know. Some school odds and ends for the kids.’

  ‘Ah, right, right.’

  Nandana could have bet her teacup and its whole family sitting back in her kitchen cabinet that Pallabi would stay in her housecoat and only emerge fresh and made-up to pick her kids up from the bus drop-off point at 4.30.

  She had bigger fish to fry and she decided to get fishing.

  ‘Pallabi,’ she was annoyed to hear the tremble in her own voice, ‘I have something to…ask you.’

  ‘Okay?’ Pallabi looked wary.

  ‘I have been meaning to tell you, for several weeks now, Pallabi, but I know that you don’t take things um…well, sometimes, and I wondered how to put it to you. I even hoped that if I waited long enough this problem would go away―but things have changed now, haven’t they?’

  Pallabi looked like she’d been turned to stone.

  Nandana took a renewed breath and ploughed on, relieved that Pallabi wasn’t throwing a hissy fit already. ‘Two weeks ago, Pallabi, I…I was in the kitchen late at night, clearing up, you know. The kids were already asleep, and I had kept the TV going so I…I didn’t hear it immediately. But on some suspicion, I had come out in the living room to find…to find….’

  Pallabi continued to stare, seemingly transfixed.

  ‘Dilip. Dilip was in the house and he was headed down the corridor to the bedrooms.’

  At the mention of her husband’s name the spell was finally broken. Pallabi reared up from her seat, ‘How dare you! Spreading rumours about my husband!’

  ‘I’m not spreading anything; in fact, I’ve been more discreet than perhaps I should have.’

  ‘Is that a threat?’ Pallabi had gone red in the face and she took the few steps that separated them in the tiny living room. ‘You’re messing with the wrong family, got it?’

  Nandana now saw which way the conversation would go, the Pallabis of the world were predictable that way. It was more outrage at it being brought up than such a thing having happened. She didn’t seem surprised, or try to find the reason behind Nandana bringing such a strange story to her; no, Pallabi had gone directly to red-faced outrage and threats.

  That was all the confirmation Nandana needed, and in spite of herself, she felt better. She needn’t feel conflicted any more.

  Nandana struggled out of the squashy sofa and stood almost nose to nose with her neighbour. ‘Fine, take it that way. I came as a friend to try to understand the incident. It’s not a small thing, especially not after last Thursday.’

  She slipped past Pallabi and headed out. At the door she said in a quiet voice, ‘Dilip should not have been there. Let me make it clear that he messed with the wrong family, and by supporting whatever the hell perversion this is…you are too. Goodbye.’

  Nandana tried to look unconcerned as she left, closing the door behind her.

  She heard her favourite teacup shatter against the other side of the door.

  ******

  11

  Thursday, 13th September 2014

  The murder had happened on Thursday and life had already begun to trickle down its usual ruts.

  Rising before 6 am, getting the kids ready for school, going to the vegetable shop, making small talk with the faces she knew there (only now it was going over much-trodden ground about the murder and how the police seemed uninterested in the investigation, and how the media had harassed them and abandoned them within a few days), coming back, cooking the two- or three-course meals she knew everyone would complain over. Taking her bath after much procrastination, and then eating a solitary lunch. Dozing off over a book, and invariably waking up in a panic that she’d missed the bus drop-off time.

  On days when she managed her time better, Nandana had started to look online and in mothers’ forums for work-from-home options, though there didn’t seem a good fit anywhere. After the murder though, this routine weighed on her, made heavier by the burden on her mind. She had tried to stop the thoughts from forming about the questioning by the police and Ira, the unpleasantness with Pallabi; but they kept jumping out at her wherever she looked.

  But today it would be better. She had something to look forward to in the evening, a way to escape her grim worries.

  Her children had been called to a birthday party where parents were not invited.

  ‘Everything is possible nowadays,’ Pallabi had sniffed when they had discussed the invitation two weeks ago, in friendlier times. ‘Why even have a birthday party if it’s done in such embarrassing half measures?’

  Nandana, on the other hand, thoroughly approved of the idea. Her husband would be back home, and she would get some time alone with him; a near impossible feat unless it was past the children’s bedtime and she was drooping with sleep and already planning what went into the six tiffin boxes she sent with her two children.

  She had combed her hair and spritzed herself surreptitiously with her ‘special perfume’, chosen a salwar kameez which could pass as everyday wear but had a pleasing cut that emphasised the strong points in her figure. The idea was not to seem like she was getting ready for her evening with her husband, but just being ready for any eventuality, should the evening take such a turn.

  Nandana dressed the kids up, feeling quite light hearted. She l
oved her children to bits, she lived for them; yet sometimes it was nice to know they were somewhere else, having fun; so she could enjoy some guilt-free time with their father. The way it had all begun.

  Piya and Prithwish departed―squabbling, kicking, overdressed masses of energy. Nandana breathed out a bit and took a look at her acne in the mirror. It looked a little less inflamed today, she thought hopefully. She checked her clock and WhatsApped her husband. ‘Where are you?’

  ‘I’ll be a little late. Why?’

  Oh, how predictable was her life. She felt all the worse for having combed her hair.

  She typed: ‘I had told you a week ago, then again two days ago and once again last night. You had said, some time alone at last! And I had laughed and nodded. And now here I am, a labour-saving gadget just like any other in this house; except perhaps slightly longer-lived and lower maintenance than most of them.’

  She felt better for having typed it all out. She took a deep breath and pressed the backspace button all the way to the beginning, replacing it with ‘Just checking. Please remember to pay the electricity bill.’

  ‘Ah yes. Paying bills, one of my many favourite things to do.’ He followed it with a smiley.

  She would have thrown the phone across the room if it hadn’t been dearer than life itself, and if she didn’t have to explain to Kushal why he would have to spend several thousands of his precious money on a new one.

  She briskly messaged the no-doubt harried mother of the birthday girl: Going out, I shall be back by 8 when it is time to get the kids. Call me if there is an emergency. Not going far.

  She slung her bag on her shoulder, unfashionable and bulky with kid-related odds and ends which even the younger one had outgrown, and locked herself out of the apartment.

  That was an expensive perfume, even a spritz should not be wasted on the thankless walls of her home.

  ******

  Ira snapped awake at eight in the morning. She had gone to sleep only at 4 am. Coming through the gates in the post-midnight drizzle, she had spied Gopal dozing in the cold and barely covered section that passed as the guard’s office of Panorama Apartments adjoining the gate, and decided to wake him up for a tête-à-tête.