by Jeff Tikari
*
I sat at ‘Cakepoint’ having a cup of tea one wintry afternoon. The monsoons had departed and the winter chill and mist swirled around the glazed balcony that overlooked the ridge. I sat idly gazing at the ridge and waited for the Inspector. Suddenly the mist lifted and I saw Harry and Svetlana, hand in hand off to ‘Lovers Point.’ My heart beat violently.
Svetlana wore a long red leather coat and he a calf length trench coat. This was the first time I was seeing them on the ridge, though the towns’ people claimed they had seen them before between 3 and 4 p.m.
I lifted the binoculars from my handbag with shaking hands and studied them. They were clearly in focus. Svetlana was laughing and walking in an animated way; she looked up into Harry’s face… I could see every hair of her head: she was smiling and her mouth was slightly open exposing her beautiful pearly teeth. Her skin was glowing and pink from the chill in the air. Harry lifted her jubilant face and kissed her lips – the mist swept in and obscured them.
I took out a handkerchief from my bag and wiped the tears from my eyes. My heart was laden with sorrow – tears flowed down my cheeks - the apparition had been so very lifelike!
You see, Svetlana and Harry were brutally murdered at Lovers Point, two weeks ago.
A Woman’s Aura
Seema loved the house. It was bigger and airier than the house they had moved from. It boasted a pretty lawn in the front and a vegetable garden and tube well in the back. It wasn’t a patch on the house next door though, which was large and handsome and surrounded with shady Gulmohar trees on a large plot. 'Bloody richie!' she said to herself.
‘Bloody richie’ was at that moment observing Seema through his spyglass, he liked what he saw: slim, of average height dressed in black slacks and ‘tank necked’ top; she looked svelte and sexy. He would have to meet her he decided; he would call her and her husband along with some friends over for dinner.
The following party night Baldev (‘Richie’) saw Seema sashay through the front door with her husband; she was draped in a shimmering sari wrapped tightly around her stunning figure. He quickly stepped forward to meet her. ‘This is my husband, Doctor Arun,’ she said in a husky voice. ‘And I am Seema.’
Baldev caught the whiff of a cheap though pleasant perfume. What his senses also recorded was the exudation on her breath of a powerful female pheromone: an indescribable primordial sexual aroma some women exuded; coupled with her easy assured manner and smart get-up it was heady and irresistible … was Cupid stringing her bow?
Baldev had no time for anyone else that evening; he was enchanted by Seema and reveled in it. If only he could have some moments alone with her. But it was no to be. He was, after-all, the host and had to look after the needs of all.
In the morning Baldev took stock: last night he had drunk the other half of the bottle after all had departed. What the hell! He could look after himself. He had encountered numerous offers of marriage through his forty-two years and indulged in various flirtations, yet he chose to remain a potential 'prize catch'…but his market worth would have crashed and his single stature ravished had he met Seema in those earlier days.
Arun had seen it all immediately. He was aware of the sway Seema had on men; she had produced that influence on him too.
“I see you have bowled the ol’ geezer over,” said Arun. “He was almost having a seizure over you - there’s no profit in that area, is there?”
“Don’t be silly, darling; can’t you see he is loaded?”
“So what if he is?”
“Well, we could do with a bit of his wealth…?”
“Sure we could, but how do you intend getting it. I can’t see him spreading it around?”
“I don’t know… perhaps if I string him along … who knows, it’s early days yet.”
‘And what does that “string him along” mean?’ he asked archly.
‘Oh, stop being a fuddy. It means nothing like what it sounds. I meant we’ll just see how things unfold. So relax hon.’
On the pretext of borrowing a half-cup of sugar, a little milk, or an egg or two, she visited Baldev regularly. Baldev splashed on a little more aftershave every morning in anticipation of her visits. Some days only Charan and Henry, his assistants, would sample this expensive aroma. Every footfall outside his door fueled his anticipation – the office peon bent low offering salaams for not often was he greeted with a big smile from the sahib.
Baldev offered her coffee and cakes - anything to extend her stay; she rarely stayed longer than was necessary. She noticed how he would maneuver to touch her hand in passing her a cup of tea or a plate of savory. He was always well dressed in designer casual wear and she loved his lotions.
On one occasion he sat her behind his large desk and chatted whilst he worked. He was on the telephone a lot and large sums of money were discussed. She was impressed. Later during her conversation with Baldev, she happened to make the observation that one couldn’t get what one wanted unless one first made an appropriate investment. Baldev fixed his eyes on her and nodded slowly.
Arun bent over with laughter, “So, after the big hint you gave him he gave you this cheap trinket? What is it anyway? Some cheap white steel with colored glass bits embedded? I knew he was a miser. How did you ever accept such cheap junk?”
“It was packed in an expensive looking box, how was I to know what it contained?” Seema was annoyed. “What does he take me for, the cheapskate?” Seema stopped going to his house; she would show him!
Baldev wondered what he had done wrong - should he change his aftershave or what? Perhaps he shouldn’t have given her the present; maybe, her husband didn’t like the idea of him giving her such an expensive present. It was an exclusive ‘designer’ piece in solid platinum studded with semi precious stones and had cost him an arm and a leg. Well, she had dropped the hint, hadn’t she - and turned his bachelorhood on its head.
He knew he couldn’t live without seeing her close up and without smelling her womanliness; he would have to find out what was keeping her away. He would go across and enquire; and to not make it look sly, he would go when her husband was back from his clinic.
“Baldev!” Seema cried, genuinely pleased: “How nice of you to drop by! Come, come we are just about to have tea.” Arun smiled warmly. In the next half hour Baldev was more perplexed than ever: both husband and wife behaved like nothing untoward had happened; and Baldev had suffered such torture in the last two days.
They offered him drinks and now he was feeling in an expansive mood. These were nice people he thought; surely he could do something for them.
“Look, why don’t you both spend more time in my house? You know I am mostly stuck in the back office. You can have the run of the house: cook a meal there… I would love a woman’s cooking. Just do whatever you please.”
Now that they had free access to Baldev's home, a plan nudged around Arun’s covetous mind; he had done some stealthy probing and discovered a large cache of money hidden in secret chambers under the wardrobe. Obviously ‘black money’: unaccounted and untraceable. He discovered some concealed chambers in his bedroom which could contain other valuables.
Arun decided to put a plan into action; he took Seema into confidence. He would purchase a poison he had been working with in his lab and as Seema was cooking most of Baldev's mid-day meals she could slip very minute quantities of the poison into Baldev’s portion of the meal, that way he wouldn’t suspect her as she was eating the same meal; he would slowly get ill and over a period of time Baldev would be bed ridden and finally the end would come quite swiftly.
Seema burst into peals of laughter. Arun was always mesmerized with the purity of her laughter, the gleam of her even teeth and the turn of her slim neck. “You are so silly, my darling! This plan of yours is so old and so hackneyed, even prehistoric humans must have tried it. This is no plan, darling; it is a red flag with our names on it. You are a doctor you should know that the simplest autopsy would show up traces of
the poison.”
Arun looked at her amused, “Do you really think I am that stupid? You just do your bit, sweetheart; I have worked out a formula that will remove all traces of the poison from his viscera and his tissue cells. It is completely full proof. Do you think I would suggest such a seemingly crude plan?”
Arun was now getting impatient. The miserly fool was not going to part with his money; if he was to use his plan he must do so now before the situation changed.
Arun consulted Seema and unobtrusively slid his plan into action: every day a small amount of the poison was mixed with Baldev’s food. Nothing happened the first few days; by the end of the week Baldev complained of vertigo and nausea. Arun was sent for in the evening and, after medically checking out Baldev, prescribed some pills. The next day Baldev was even worse. He took to bed and both Arun and Seema fussed over him incessantly. Arun was now medicating him constantly and reassuring him. Seema sat next to his bed and pressed his forehead. Baldev was pleased, but he felt too ill to enjoy it. Arun took blood samples on the pretext of sending it for analysis. Baldev, meanwhile, was deteriorating progressively – as per plan.
Arun saw the time was near now, another couple of days and he could give Baldev the antidote - for by then he would have progressed too far into his ailment to