Into The Shadows

by Aayush Borulkar

  “Yeah, SURE,” said Vivek nervously.

  Chapter 3

  The first bell went unanswered. An embarrassed Richa tried ringing the bell again, this time hoping that someone would definitely hear and open the door. And fortunately, this time, someone did open the door, and there stood a girl with long dark brown hair and fair skin, round spectacles resting on her nose, which were indeed doing injustice to those beautiful green eyes. And with an exciting squeaky voice, she said, “Finally here you are, my little princess! But you are pretty late, and half the party is already over. And who is this handsome you brought along with you?”

  “He is a friend. He had nothing to do, for the night, so he asked me if he could tag along, and I agreed,” said Richa while Vivek was looking at her in disbelief.

  “Uh-huh, a friend, no issues, glad that you brought him along, though. By the way, I am Vibha. Welcome to the party,” she said, blushing.

  Deafening rock music welcomed the couple as they entered the house. Dimmed lights with people dancing, some to the beat, and some offbeat. The drawing-room was filled with people eating, drinking, and some were drunk to the extent that even a simple act like walking seemed an ordeal task. Near the fireplace sat a group of people, warming themselves up. The atmosphere was pretty chill in Goa that night.

  Vivek wondered where Richa had brought him, as all of this was unprecedented for him.

  “Come, I will introduce you to all of my friends,” said Richa pulling Vivek by the arm.

  As the couple entered the room, a group of three stood at the other end of the room, talking about something that seemed intriguing as they were murmuring about it.

  “Hey guys!!” said Richa screaming at the top of her voice.

  “There you are Richa!!” said everyone in different pitches.

  “We have been waiting for you for so long, that now I need one more drink,” said one of the girls and she excused herself out of the room.

  “Let me introduce you to my guest for tonight. This is Vivek,” said Richa with a wide smile.

  Two of her friends came forward and introduced themselves to Vivek. But there sat a woman with a wine glass in her hand and reading a brochure, least caring about what was happening around her and was engrossed to such an extent that a few strands of her red coloured hair discreetly dipped into the wine glass.

  “Kaajal! Could you please at least say ‘hello’ to our guest?” asked a short skinny guy with sharp eyes and a wheatish complexion. But the most peculiar thing about him was his hairstyle. It looked like a well-kneaded dough of hair was placed on his head. It seemed weird, but according to him, it was indeed futuristic.

  “Oh yeah, sure, Nishant,” said Kaajal keeping her wine glass on the side table and getting up. She went up to Vivek and said with a surprisingly deep voice for a female, “Hello there, I am Kaajal. Glad to meet you,” extending her long right arm, which showed the tattoo on her forearm.

  Vivek shook her hand nimbly. “What does that tattoo mean, if I may ask,” he asked uncomfortably.

  “Oh, this! This is just a mistake I committed when I turned 18. It says “bliss” in mandarin,” she answered, looking at the tattoo. “It’s just a stupid mistake at a naïve age,” she added, looking at the tattoo as if it was bringing back some bad old memories.

  And as the pleasantries went on, there entered a guy, steering away the awkwardness in the air. He came running into the room, dropping a few chips from the packet held in his right hand as if he was making a trail for his way back. He stood there panting. He had a thick beard, square glasses, and he looked way beyond his biological age. All he was wearing were shorts and a graphically printed t-shirt which glittered in the spotlight and was barely covering his tummy.

  “Abhimanyu is nowhere to be found!! I searched the whole place, but no sign of him,” he exclaimed.

  Nishant held him by the shoulders and asked him to calm down first, then added, “Ish, did you check his bedroom?”

  “Yes, I did.”

  “Then the veranda?” asked Nishant.

  “Surely I did. Is that even a question”.

  “Then what about Mrs. Shekhawat’s bedroom. Did you check there?” asked Kaajal, interrupting Nishant. And it felt as if that question had all the hysteria in the air. It felt as if the air was cleaner again.

  “Oh, shoot. Yeah missed that room completely. I will go and check it at once. And hey there new guy! I am Ishaan. See you around,” said Ishan as he hurriedly left the room.

  Richa stopped Ishaan abruptly, nearly making him fall, and said, “We should all go and check up on him. After what had happened with Mrs. Shekhawat, he is shaken. And it might be a very emotional moment for him. Hence, we should all go there”.

  Everyone concurred on what Richa had suggested, and then everyone hurried towards Mrs. Shekhawat’s bedroom.

  “It is none of my business, but what happened to that guy’s mother?” asked Vivek walking closely behind Richa.

  “She committed suicide,” whispered Richa. “This happened three years back when Abhimanyu had just turned 18. It shook Abhimanyu to the core. We usually don’t talk about it.”

  “Oh, damn. It’s crushing to see your mother die like that,” said Vivek, to which he did get a side look from Richa, implying that he was just stating the obvious.

  And finally, they entered a room which was illuminated by only a few candles. A king-size sofa adjacent to the entrance was covered with cobwebs, indicating that it had not been cleaned in ages. There was only one window in the room which was closed, due to which the air in the room had turned misty. And there stood a tall boy, with a well-built body wearing a tuxedo. He was staring at a life-sized painting of a middle-aged woman, barely illuminated by a spotlight from above.

  Everybody stood at the entrance of the room, and only Nishant walked up to Abhimanyu and said, “Hey there champ. Everybody is waiting for you. You got us all worried. Come, let’s go cut the cake and put some life into the party”.

  As Nishant was saying this, Vivek could not bear the mistiness in the air anymore and went up to the window and was about to open it when Abhimanyu yelled in a deep alarming voice that made everyone in the room jump with disbelief, “DARE YOU OPEN THOSE WINDOW PANES.”

  Ishaan hurriedly ran towards Vivek and shut the window panes.

  “That’s the window Mrs. Shekhawat jumped out from. Nobody ever opens it now as this room is always shut,” mumbled Ishaan trying to close the jammed window.

  “Guys, the cake is ready, and everyone is waiting downstairs,” exclaimed Vibha in a fading tone as she came dancing into the room. “Is everything alright?” she asked in a much calmer voice.

  “Yes, everything is fine, and we are bringing Abhimanyu down. Chalo Abhi, let us go,” said Kaajal pulling Abhimanyu in a friendly manner.

  As they walked downstairs, they were all welcomed by an array of beaming faces. They all started singing the birthday song in unison, which was a spectacle to watch. As they sang, Abhimanyu walked down, taking two steps at a time, and went up to the cake. He closed his eyes and blew all the 21 candles placed along the perimeter of the cake. While Abhimanyu fed the cake to all his friends, Vivek stood there seeing all of this from the crowd. Kaajal even went ahead and took a piece of cake to feed Abhimanyu and then smeared it on his face, and spread it all over his cheeks as the whole living room broke out into laughter. Ishaan went to the DJ and took over the music system. Everyone had started dancing to the beats as if somebody had just given them an adrenaline rush.

  Vibha pulled Vivek into the rhythmic chaos and forced him to dance. He was standing by the pillar overlooking the whole thing until then. They all started dancing as if it was their last day on Earth. There was so much energy in the room that they could turn a turbine with that much power. As they were dancing, a boy came in with a tray and was finding his way through the crowd. Just then, Richa, while dancing, swung her arm and nudged the boy unknowingly. Due to the nudge, the boy fell on Vivek along with the tray of g
lasses.

  “Arey dekh kar nahi chal sakta kya?” screamed Richa at the boy, who by then hadn’t even come out of the shock.

  “Sorry, madam,” said the boy, still embarrassed about the whole thing. By then, the music had stopped and everyone had turned their attention towards Vivek.

  Vivek got up and helped the boy with the broken glass pieces.

  “Vivek, come with me, and I will get you some clothes to change into. Abhimanyu’s might fit you,” said Richa while asking Abhimanyu with a nod.

  “The boy will take care of it. He is the son of the caretaker. It’s his job,” added Richa.

  Vivek did not want to leave the boy in that state but Richa just pulled him and they exited the dance floor towards Abhimanyu’s bedroom upstairs. On reaching the room Richa found Vivek a shirt from Abhimanyu’s closet and left the room, allowing Vivek to change.

  “I think you should go for him tonight. He is quite charming,” said Vibha from behind with a sense of sparkle in her voice.

  “Oh, don’t be stupid,” snapped Richa turning towards Vibha.

  “And plus, he is just not my type.”

  “Okay, no problem. I will try my luck then,” said Vibha mockingly and turned to leave.

  Vivek came out wearing the new shirt. “I think I should be leaving now, Richa. It is getting too late, and the party is coming to a close too,” said Vivek. “And I will drive here tomorrow morning to return this shirt” he added.

  “It’s okay, Vivek, Don’t bother about the shirt. Abhimanyu won’t even notice that one of his shirt is missing. And could you please stay? You could stay late into night and then leave early in the morning,” requested Richa. “We are even going to play treasure hunt. I would love if you could be a part of it,” added Richa.

  “Oh no, I better get going, it is already too late. I can’t stay for the night,please let me go Richa,” pleaded Vivek, holding Richa by the shoulders.

  “Alright. You can leave,” sighed Richa while pulling his hand, where she wrote down her landline number with her lipstick.

  “I will see you around then,” added Richa smacking her lips as an overwhelmed Vivek looked right back at her.

  “Okay, sure,” said Vivek, half smiling at Richa.

  As Vivek was leaving, the party had come to an early end, and most of the guests had already left. Only a few were still there who had passed out or were too drunk to go home. He even met a person who so high that he roamed around, asking everyone about his own address. In the kitchen, Kaajal helped Ram Lal’s son with the dishes, and the caretaker Ram Lal, was picking up the empty bottles and cleaning up the place. Ishaan had half passed out lying on the couch. Vivek waved to Nishant and Abhimanyu, who were talking about something in the hall as he left the villa.

  As things were coming to a close, the caretaker came to Abhimanyu and said, “Sir, mein aur munna sone jaa rahe hai. Agar kuch lage tho jaaga dena”.

  “Haa thikey so jao” said Abhimanyu looking at the clock.

  “Even we should get going to our rooms, it is quite late,” said Nishant.

  Chapter 4

  The clock was striking six. After a serene and cold night, a new day was rising with every passing minute, and the sun was ready to lighten up the whole atmosphere. But that was not the case for the people sleeping in the villa, who lay there in utmost silence. There was no stir in the air. The leafy avenue was bereft of any noise, indicating the calm before the storm. Even the trees did not rustle as if they were tensed about what was yet to come. Amidst the dead silence, the clock’s ticking, which was earlier dampened due to the unnecessary ruckus, felt as if it had suddenly started to tick loudly.

  And as the clock struck six, it ticked the loudest, which did not make any difference to the surrounding, except that it had now disrupted Ishaan’s sleep. Now he was sitting wide awake in his bed. He reached out for the jar of water and emptied it into the glass adjacent to it. He could only manage to fill a quarter of the glass. Hence, he got out of his bed and trotted to the kitchen to fetch some water. He suddenly felt cramps in his stomach and a series of hunger pangs. So he decided to open the fridge and get himself some leftover food. As soon as he opened the refrigerator, he saw something that made his blood pressure shoot up. His eyes rolled backward, and he fell with a loud thud that rendered him unconscious. And when a person of that structure falls, it does cause a high decibel noise. And that noise did wake up Vibha, who got off her bed hastily, waking up Richa, who was sleeping beside her. Vibha ran downstairs, tying her night robe, and screeched as soon as she saw Ishaan lying unconscious on the kitchen floor.

  Slowly and gradually, Ishaan was gaining consciousness, but all he could see and hear were hazy pictures of people murmuring about something in the opened fridge.

  “We should definitely call the cops,” said one of them.

  “It’s too risky to do that, we did not expect this. We can’t afford the cops to know about what we were upto in here,” said someone who sounded and resembled Richa.

  “But we have to do something about the body now. We just can’t keep it lying in here like this,” suggested Nishant.

  “Wait, I will give a call to my father. He probably might help us with this mess,” said Abhimanyu.

  The next thing Ishaan knew was that he was on the sofa, with siren noises coming from all directions. His head was throbbing with pain, but he couldn’t move. Ishaan tried to get up, but his body failed him. At the entrance sat Vibha, Kaajal, and Nishant, petrified by the whole incident. Their faces were white as ash.

  “Will they figure out what we were up to in here?” asked Vibha looking up at the sky.

  “I don’t think so they will, for we had cleared everything before we slept right. So nothing to worry,” said Kaajal consoling Vibha.

  “And what might that be friends?” asked a man from behind. The four stood up startled and turned back to see a tall man with a long face, with a little stubble on his face. The three stars on his shoulders shining brightly in the early morning sun.

  “Inspector Imran Amin at your service,” said the inspector as he stretched out his long hand for a handshake. The four of them just stared back at the hand, and taking the cue the inspector just retracted his hand.

  “So as we all know, there has been a cold-blooded murder in this house. The only facts that we could obtain from looking at the body are that it was a “she” who has been murdered, meaning she was a female, so witty of me to come up with that,” said the inspector with a smirk. “But we have sent the body to the forensics, and we will get to know more about it, not much though, I am afraid because the body was completely annihilated, but we are going to try our best,” added the inspector.

  “Oh, sure. We would love to help you arrest the person who did that to the poor girl,” said Nishant trying to sound confident.

  “Yeah, I will need your help anyway. So I gather she wasn’t one of you, huh. Okay, that means the body was planted in here somehow from the outside,” said the inspector as he went back into the house talking to himself.

  “He looks like a crack head to me,” said Nishant as the three saw the inspector walk back into the house.

  This time the conversation was interrupted by a Mercedes that stopped right in front of the villa, its headlights flashing straight into the eyes of the three standing at the entrance. A skinny man stepped out of the front seat only to open the rear door. From the back seat stepped out a stern looking man in a suit, with a French beard that did justice his face cut. He came walking towards the entrance of the house, taking long strides.

  “Where is Abhimanyu?” asked the man in a surprisingly deep voice to the star-struck trio.

  Breaking the silence Kaajal spoke, “He is in the master bedroom, I guess.”

  “Yes, yes,” said the other two in tandem.

  But before they could complete their sentence, the man just walked off into the house.

  “Why does Mr. Shekhawat always have a frown on his face? Doesn’t he ever smile? Wond
er when was the last time he laughed?” asked Vibha as the three watched Mr. Shekhawat climb the stairs taking two steps at a time.

  As Mr. Shekhawat reached the top floor, he was greeted by inspector Imran.

  “Oh, aap finally aa gaye,” said the inspector shaking hands with Mr. Shekhawat.

  “Good morning Inspector. I came in as fast as I could. It’s a good thing that I called you as soon as I heard about this unfortunate incident from my son. Could you please update me on the findings of this case till now?” asked Mr. Shekhawat with urgency in his voice.

  “Yes sure, how could I say no to a renowned high court lawyer, like you. I will definitely do that Sir. But first, why don’t you go and check on your son. I will be waiting for you in the guest room,” said the inspector.

  “Oh yeah right. Yes, sure. I will do that and meet you in the guest room,” said Mr. Shekhawat taking the inspector’s leave.

  As he entered Abhimanyu’s bedroom, he saw his son, completely distraught. His hair all shabby, and was murmuring a song, holding a glass of whiskey in his shaky hands.

  “Abhimanyu, how was the party? Kisi cheez ki kami tho nahi padi na?” asked Mr.Shekhawat as he went to the table to pour himself some whiskey.

  “Dad, there has been a murder in the house. And all you could ask me was about the party? What is wrong with you?” yelled Abhimanyu, on the brink of breaking down.

  “I know my son. And I will figure out something and not let any of it get traced back to you. As if all of this never happened here,” comforted Mr.Shekhawat.

  “But we did not do…

  “I know, but the world is cruel out there, and my son, such a case is not good for business,” said Mr.Shekhawat as he finished his whiskey and left the room leaving behind a red-eyed Abhimanyu.

  The father-son duo was never close. Mr. Shekhawat was a renowned advocate in the Bombay high court. So Abhimanyu never did receive the warmth of a father from Mr. Shekhawat. Even when Mrs. Shekhawat was alive, Abhimanyu did not get the love and attention from his mother too. He adored his mother, but she wasn’t happy with her marriage, and Abhimanyu had to bear the brunt of it. So here was Abhimanyu, a rich kid with a shattered family.