by Sana Shetty
Misha felt exhausted. She had just managed to come to terms with the death of her brother and Vedant had to turn up here and open old wounds again. Angrily, she brushed aside the fresh tears. She was done crying for him years ago. Never again! He had deserted her and his best friend, refusing to even keep any contact with them. Jay had died waiting for him to come back and now here he was. It was a little too late for explanations.
She had heard about Tarun’s disappearance and should have known Vedant would come back; should have expected him back. But she hadn’t expected him at her doorstep, literally and seeing him like that, in the barn, unsettled her. She barely heard the knock on the door and when she opened it, Namita stood there.
“Just wanted you to know, our guest is sleeping on your couch. And well…,” she hesitated looking at her closely, “Are you okay? I mean….you…you seem pretty upset.”
Her obvious concern brought on a fresh burst of tears. “Hey, there…there it’s alright.” Namita patted her shoulders. “I know you are upset and perhaps it is none of my business. But I think you should give him a chance to tell his story. He seems to have gone through a lot too.”
“I’m sorry…you… you got caught up in all that drama.” She hiccupped.
“We all need these outlets once a while, so don’t worry about it. Actually, I think you are really a strong girl” Namita said.
“Wow thanks. Coming from you! I have been whining about everything for the whole evening. And you think I am strong,” she said wryly.
“No really. Not many of us could have bounced back after all that you have gone through. So yes, I think you are a strong girl and I can see why Raunak loves you so much. Hmm…,” Namita suppressed a yawn. “I think we should go back to sleep for at least a few hours.”
“Yes, of course. And Namita thank you.”
“What for?”
“For just being there. For being a friend.”
“Hey! No problem. Just don’t over use the shoulder, okay?” she winked.
₪ ₪ ₪
Chapter 7
When Misha descended the stairs in the morning and found the couch empty, she couldn’t tell whether she was relieved or disappointed, but she reckoned, she should be grateful that she didn’t have to face him. It was a complication she could do without at the moment in her life. But her relief was short lived. As she entered the kitchen, she spotted him standing on the threshold of the back door staring out. Unseen, she observed him. He had been reed thin as a teenager and now he looked broader, more mature. She could just see the hint of muscles beneath the thin white cotton shirt. He was taller too and he wore his curls shorter than before. There were lines around his mouth and dark circles around his eyes, reminding her of his stress. He looked tired and for just a fleeting moment, old feelings rushed to the fore before she quelled it with a stern reminder to herself about his betrayal. He had not only left her without a word, he had betrayed Jay’s friendship as well, not giving them a thought, until now.
As if sensing her eyes on him, he turned around and their eyes locked. Her eyes slid down to the dried blood on the front of his shirt. Guiltily, she realised, he had been injured and bleeding and she hadn’t even been courteous enough to offer him a clean shirt and a bed.
“Good morning,” his voice was soft, unsure, as if he was being a little cautious. Contrite at her behaviour the previous night, her heart melted a little. Whatever he may have done in the past, it did not justify her behaviour towards him. He had come to her in his hour of need, after all.
“Good morning,” she responded and was thankful her voice did not betray any emotion but sounded polite. That is how she would keep it. She would be polite to him, civil.
“I’m sorry, I’m still here. I just…..I just …couldn’t leave without talking to you first.”
“And I’m sorry for my behaviour last night. I overreacted. You don’t have to leave and you need to clean up and change,” she indicated the blood on his shirt. “You can use the washroom in Jay’s room. I will get you some clean clothes and a towel.” He had come closer as she spoke and she suddenly wasn’t so sure of standing so close to him. He was too familiar and the desire to just run up to him and put her arms around him overwhelmed her. She turned away, wanting to get away but he stopped her with a gentle hand on her arm.
“Wait. We have to talk.”
His voice, his closeness and his touch were doing strange things to her. This was not right and she took a step back almost flinching away and saw the hurt in his eyes. But she had to say it. She had moved on and he couldn’t just waltz back into her life again.
“You don’t owe me any explanation, Ved. Whatever happened, is in the past and I would like to keep it that way. I have moved on, past all of that.” She said a little firmly.
“Yes I heard. You are engaged to Raunak. Congratulations,” he said stiffly, his gaze penetrated her very soul. That had always been his speciality. He could dredge out the deepest feeling out of her. Make her confess things, tell him her deepest secrets. But she was not a kid anymore and neither were they the soul mates, she had once thought they were. She could repel his charms and was not ready to open her soul to him. Not again.
“Thank you. I will get you those clothes and you can get tidied while I make breakfast,” she said, running away from him. She ran up the stairs and paused in front of Jay’s room. It was now, more than ten days since his death and still the thought of seeing his things brought on fresh pain. In the first few days after Jay’s death, she had spent all her time here, trying to hold on to him. His scent had filled the room and it had felt like he was still here. Now, even that was fading, she thought, desperately breathing in deeply.
She could feel the intense pain, heavy, in her chest. A photograph of Jay with her dad and herself, when they were younger, sat on the small bedside table, along with a stack of books. These will be all that I will have of him left, she thought picking it up and gently caressing it with her thumb. Jay had his hand over their dad’s shoulder and the other over hers. A noise behind her made her jump and she quickly wiped away the tear that threatened to spill over. Turning around, she spotted Namita standing in the open doorway watching her.
“Sorry, I did not mean to startle you,” she said softly.
“It’s…okay. I was just here to get some clean clothes for Ved…and…,” she put the photograph back on the table and turned away. Namita must think her a cry baby. She was here for not more than a day and she had already caught her crying so many times that it was getting embarrassing. She started towards the huge cupboard at the other end of the room and found herself face to face with Namita.
“It is alright to mourn for a loved one. Don’t be ashamed of your grief, Misha. Jay was your brother and it is natural for you to feel like this. It is going to be there with you for the rest of your life but it gets better, I promise.”
Misha let the tears fall, “Jay wasn’t supposed to die. He was so young, so full of life. He fought against all odds but never gave up. And now….I don’t get it. He had no reason to give up. I just wish I could make sense of all this. He was so happy when I came back. And then… my engagement. He was happier than I had known him for a long time.”
“What changed? Why did he take his own life?” Vedant asked from behind them. “Have you ever wondered that maybe, he didn’t take his own life?”
“What do you mean?” Misha asked cautiously, her heart thumping.
“I’m sorry I overheard your conversation,” he said. “But have you ever wondered that he may have not committed suicide?”
“So even you think he did not kill himself?” She brushed aside his apology, clinging to what he had said. She wanted some vindication of her own belief and who knew Jay better than Vedant.
“Yes. You have seen that wall. How could he….how could anyone scale it to jump into the river? And if he had wanted to end his life, why not just jump into the river?”
His questions were so similar to her own that
she almost felt relieved. She was not in denial as everyone was telling her. Jay did not kill himself. She broke down sinking on the bed as her emotions overwhelmed her. She felt Vedant’s arms around her and all her pentup desperation came pouring out as she cried her heart out on his shoulders. It was quite some time before she could get a hold on herself.
“Sorry, it is just…” she said wiping her tears with the back of her hand.
“You don’t have to apologise to me,” Vedant said gently. “I don’t believe this suicide theory. Jay would never do that to himself and to you. And now, after what happened last night, I am convinced he did not commit suicide. But….What did happen really? You must know something. He must have said something to you about what was troubling him.”
“I wish I knew. He never said a word to me about anything. And the funny thing is, I don’t think he was unhappy or something. He was a little secretive, maybe. Believe me, I have thought about nothing else but that.” Misha said. “I haven’t been able to pinpoint any reason.”
Their mutual grief had taken away the distance between them. The years, the hurt had fallen away. It was as if those eight years had never been, as they tried to understand what had really happened to Jay.
“Wait! Slow down guys. Are you two saying he was murdered?” they had forgotten Namita was still there.
“Yes.” “No….” Vedant and Misha said almost simultaneously and then exchanged a glance.
“Why would anyone murder Jay? He had no enemies and in a village like ours, where everyone knows everyone, who would do such a thing.” ” Misha asked putting into words, what she had been thinking of for so long.
“And you think he was murdered?” Namita asked Vedant. Misha could almost see the journalist in her smelling a story.
“Not everyone knows everyone. I think there are some strangers in our midst too,” he quickly looked at Namita. “Sorry I wasn’t meaning you…but did you know Tarun was married?” he asked Misha.
She nodded, “I heard…and I did see her once in the village. But why would you think that…”
“No…it is not that I think she murdered Jay or something,” Vedant said quickly. “Just that, don’t you think it is strange that Tarun should marry a total stranger, a few days after meeting her. He never said a word to me about it as well, which is totally alien to him. He always kept me updated or so I thought. Also, he disappeared almost on the same day Jay died. Don’t you think that is more than a coincidence? And there is something strange going on in that place, I don’t know what. The night I arrived someone locked me in my room.”
“Someone locked you in your room?” Namita asked.
“Why? And who would do that?” Misha frowned.
Vedant shrugged, “Except for Dinkar, me and Divya, I don’t think there was a fourth person in that house. And now I am pretty sure, Dinkar did not lock me in.” He said thoughtfully. “Also for some reason, Dinkar was scared of Divya. But then again, there is this,” he dug out the crumpled piece of paper with the warning message he had thrust into his pocket, before he had been attacked. Namita smoothed it out and they all stared at it.
“Maybe Dinkar was trying to warn you,” Namita suggested. “No,” Misha and Vedant chorused.
Namita looked at them in surprise. “How can you two be so sure?”
“Because he was illiterate. He neither knew how to read nor write,” Vedant said. “So it means it may have been Divya. But then it also implies there was someone else in the house, who she was warning me against.”
Misha remembered something that had been bothering her, since Vedant had turned up at the barn. “There is something else…were you here before last night, like the night before or something?”
Vedant frowned, “You mean here at your house?” Did she know he had been here, watching her? He was pretty sure she hadn’t spotted him.
“Yes, were you?”
Vedant hesitated, contemplating whether he should confess having come here to meet her and then run away like a coward, when she continued, “the night before last too, there was someone in the barn. But he ran away when I went in to check. And I am sure he came in from the nearby forest, because there were footprints all around.”
Vedant realised she was talking about something else and was relieved, “No that wasn’t me. I came here last night after escaping from the Heritage. And well, since it was pretty late and I did not want to alarm you, I decided to spend the night in the barn.”
“Hmm,” Misha said thoughtfully. “That means it was someone else and they were looking for something in that barn.”
“What do you think they were looking for?” Namita asked. Misha looked up to find her watching her curiously.
“I am not sure. Maybe nothing….” She trailed off.
“Hmm. You know, it could mean that your secret tunnel is not so much a secret anymore. Do you think someone else used it?” Namita asked.
Misha looked at her in alarm and Vedant said quickly, “That can’t be possible. If anyone at the hotel knew about the secret passage, I am pretty sure they wouldn’t have locked me in that storeroom, knowing I could escape. And there is no way into that tunnel except through the palace.”
“Maybe they didn’t know you were aware of it or ……”
“Or what?”
“They deliberately put you in there, knowing you would escape. Maybe they wanted you to come here. Just think. Whoever came prowling that night must have come from the hotel. There is only the hotel beyond those woods, isn’t it? Why would someone walk in from the woods and come here prowling in the middle of the night, just for fun? They must have come looking for something; something important. And, they would have to come through your secret passage. If it was someone from the village, they would have had to come through the road and the front gate isn’t it?”
“It was raining that night and maybe someone was looking for shelter just like Ved,” Misha offered the same explanation she had given Raunak, though she sounded less convincing now.
The loud jangle of the doorbell sounded through the house putting a stop to their discussion. Misha ran downstairs and found a smiling Raunak standing on the porch. She threw her arms around him hugging him. She needed to feel the familiarity of his touch and the comfort of his arms around her.
“Wow, that’s some welcome,” his grinned as he picked her off the ground, hugging her back and kissing her.
Namita and Vedant came up behind her and she felt Raunak tense as he put her down, keeping his hands on her back, lightly.
“Vedant Birajdar!” Raunak smiled, tightly. “Why am I not surprised? I wondered how long before you showed up.” He moved towards him and clasped his hands in both of his.
“Hey, Raunak,” Vedant smiled back at him. Though they met like old friends, there was an underlying tension between them and Namita looked from one to the other, “You will not believe the night we had, Raunak.” She said lightly. This girl was very perceptive, Vedant thought.
“I’m sure,” Raunak’s eyes slid to Misha and she could tell he was trying to look past her calm exterior.
“Come in and we can fill you in,” Misha took his hands and lead him in, with the rest of them following.
A little later, they sat around the table sipping tea as Vedant recounted his ordeal of the night before and how he came to be here.
“I think Dinkar was murdered because he knew something,” Vedant said, as Raunak examined the paper on which the warning had been scrawled.
“I will send someone to hotel to check but you will have to file a formal FIR and I will need this,” Raunak said, folding the message and putting it into his pocket. He then took out his phone and dialled the station. He gave crisp orders to someone.
“So do you suspect your sister-in-law?” Raunak asked as he cut his phone.
“I don’t know…what to think anymore. She is the only stranger in the house and besides….I think Dinkar was a little afraid of her. Then again, Dinkar couldn’t have written that warning
note. So it had to be her.”
“But that would mean someone else was in the house,” Raunak echoed Vedant’s words. “Maybe.. Maybe she did write the note but not to warn you. She may have slipped in this note to get you to rush out of your room and catch you by surprise. You did say there was a knock on the door first. It could mean they were waiting for you to come out.”
Vedant stared at him, blinking in surprise, “I did not think about it like that. That could be true too, except…”
“Except what?”
“The person who hit me had to be strong to knock me out. Physically, I don’t think she could have done it.”
“Hmm…maybe she had help,” Raunak said thoughtfully.
“Again that would mean there was someone else in the house. Like I said before I don’t know what to believe anymore. Nobody is surprised by the news of Tarun’s marriage to a complete stranger or that he has disappeared or even that Jay….,” Vedant shook his head. “The village I knew would have been abuzz with news like that. Instead they hush you when you talk about it.”
“There was some curiosity about Tarun’s surprise marriage. No one really knew about it until later. Nobody had seen her before and nobody knew how they had met either. There were some whispers about how very ‘different’ they were. I met her for the first time, when we had gone to the hotel to do a panchnama after we found Jay’s body and again, when she came to the police station to file a missing person report about Tarun. She did not come across as an aggressive person, though. More like a village simpleton, somebody who dressed and talked like they belonged to another era.”
“Yeah, that describes her alright. When did she come to file the report?”
“It was the day after we found Jay’s body near the cliff by the river.” Raunak glanced at Misha.
“And how long had Jay…Jay…been...” Vedant struggled with the words.