Prey on the Prowl - A Crime Novel - BS Murthy (books that read to you .txt) 📗

sensationally revealed that not only Kavya had stayed with Pravar and her for four days prior to his arrest but also she accompanied them to the Tank Bund in the very car in which the fake currency notes were allegedly found by the police. She also swore that having parked the car nearby Maisamma Temple, all three of them went up to the Tank Bunk to relax and recreate, and at some point, as Kavya complained of headache, Pravar went down to fetch the Saridon tablets kept in their car, and it was then that he was apprehended by the police to foist the fake-notes case on him. And that stunned all, including the judge.

What with Natya having come up trumps in the intense cross-examination that followed, there was no way the public prosecutor could have pulled the rug from under her feet as no case of kidnap was registered against Pravar or her. As the judge was quick in passing strictures against Shakeel, making him curse Dhruva for once, he nevertheless asked the public prosecutor to seek time for further investigation. Thus when the judge ordered the release of Pravar on bail, all applauded Kavya’s sterling performance, and as a grateful Pravar thanked her no end, an appalled Ranjit led her out of the court hall.

Then, a dumbfounded Dhruva had to strain every nerve to convince Shakeel that their failure was owing to the ‘Stockholm Syndrome’ that he had failed to factor in while fashioning the Operation Checkmate; and having vented his anger against Kayva, the cop stunned the detective by revealing, as if as an afterthought, about Pravar’s damning admission, during the interrogation, of having poisoned his sister and her lover, and vowed to book him for the double murder. However, seeing the futility of apprehending Pravar, based on his confession in police custody, for any novice of a lawyer could induce the court to set him free for want of evidence, the detective advised the cop to better guard himself against the wounded Pravar.

Nursing his self-inflicted wounds thereafter, and having realized that his meaningless obsession with Radha failed his investigative logic in heading towards Pravar, Dhruva felt ashamed of his professional incompetence. That his ill-conceived idea to bring the fake notes into the ransom play has come to derange Kavya and embarrass Shakeel has only added to his depressive feeling. Thus, with the damage done and his pride dented, he showed no inclination to return to action, though the cop was ever on the phone to goad him to be back soon.  

However, as Rani was all-eager to make the best of their sojourn, in the euphoria of their whirlwind romance that rolled days and nights into one, time seemed but a fleeting moment of their passion. So, when he sought her hand in marriage, she sought to excuse herself, and perplexed by her inexplicable rebuff, he became unrelenting in his pleas; but as she disclosed that she was a married woman, he was aghast beyond belief. Nonetheless, bowled by her charms, though he insisted that she divorce her man to adorn his life, she remained unmoved, and devastated by her refusal to yield, he demanded to know what prompted her to become such a heartless flirt.

Rani’s parents hailed from Waltair, where she graduated in arts; after which as she moved over to Hyderabad, she met Ramesh, to whose advances she had readily yielded; but realizing the gravity of her transgression, she goaded him to regularize their irregular union. While he wanted time to sort out things with his parents, who were averse to their union on caste considerations, her parents were in a hurry to give her hand to Satish, who they thought was a suitable boy in every way. So, as Ramesh continued to dilly dally even though she ran out of excuses to spurn Satish’s hand, she forced the issue with her lover, who revealed that he was already a married man; and shaken to the core, she married the latter to repair her life as his wife.

What with Satish’s charm and wit inducing warmth in her jilted life, she soon got over the bitterness of her betrayed past; so they had been reaping the fruits of their conjugation, well past the seven year itch, though without laying the seeds of it, which was the only hitch in their blessed match. Maybe to make up for that lacking, as Satish got obsessed with his career to the exclusion of all else, she came to bear the brunt of her barrenness; and what’s worse, three years back, he developed an ambition to start a mega venture of his own, which only turned their home into his office in the offing. So, as courted his career with passion, keeping her libido in the cold, she began entertaining the idea of an extramarital affair.

When she made up her mind to spice up her life in a liaison, as she recalled Ramesh’s trickery, her erotic idea came to acquire a vengeful edge, inducing her to develop an urge to play a la Ramesh with a man to get even with him in the man’s world. It was then that she recalled the cop who had put her cousin Ashok’s murder under the carpet, over which he led his murderess wife to the altar, and that motivated her to avenge the foul play. But when she came to know that Mithya the killer was no more and her cop lover became Detective Dhruva, she came to see him as an ideal target for her sexual revenge as well.

While she was upbeat at that thought, coinciding with Satish’s exploratory visit to the U.S for a business tie-up, appeared Dhruva’s ad for an assistant lady sleuth; it was her idea to incite his curiosity by loitering at the gate that rainy day as a prelude to taking him into her revengeful arms. But soon, lost in his passion, she lost her appetite for revenge, and as he began to love her too, she developed an urge to bear his child; so she would have loved to make love to him until she had missed her periods, but as her man was due by the weekend; it was time she ended her sojourn with him, but for all she knew, their child might well be in the offing.

Aghast at that, as a despaired Dhruva begged her to divorce her man and marry him; she said that she would rather stick to her husband than tie up with a philanderer like him. Even though he vouched for his eternal fidelity, as she didn’t yield on the emotional ground, so as to turn her around, he played up to her ego by praising her beauty and brains no end. But unmoved still, as she said that he being a ladies’ man, there wouldn’t be any dearth of desirable mates for him, he begged her not to make it a sudden death to his ardor and continue their liaison till he could master his emotions.    Still remaining unrelenting, as she said that it was no way to make the best of the hoped for change in her life, he retorted by saying that she was being cruel to him; and yet maintaining that it was part of life, she told him that he would be able to put all that behind him as soon as he fancies some dame.

 

Chapter 11

Psyche of Revenge

 

When a dejected Dhruva returned home alone that evening, Raju informed him that some Radha came to see him in the morning. What with the lost love and his hurt ego haunting him, he thought no more of petticoat chasing, even if it were the coveted Radha, whom, after Shakeel’s revelation, he came to pity as well, so he thought. Whatever, to catch up with the lost time and to get back to the brass-tacks of his business, he invited the cop to review the Operation Checkmate afresh over a couple of drinks.

Lying in wait in mufti near Maisamma temple, said Shakeel sipping ‘Teachers’ on the rocks, he sighted the earmarked Santro, driven by a young woman. After she brought the vehicle to a halt, nearby the roadside shrine, he alerted the patrol parties stationed at all the exit points. When he was nearly tired of keeping focus on the target in that dim light, he saw the woman alight from the car along with Kavya, whom she readily led into the vaulted staircase abutting the in-built temple. Shortly thereafter, he had seen a familiar looking figure emerge from the staircase with the handbags that he himself had arranged for the Operation Checkmate. While the guy was about to get into the Santro, a Skoda passed him by, and in the flash of its headlights, he was surprised to realize that he was none other than Pravar himself. However, when the rogue steered the car towards the Ramakrishna Mutt Road, he had alerted the patrol party in wait near the Dharna Chowk, and by the time, he himself joined them, they had already nabbed the stunned culprit. But it was his own turn to be shocked, when, during interrogation, Pravar revealed his hidden hand in the unresolved double murder of Madhu and Mala.   

Sparing the cop with his barbs for once, the detective wanted a picture of the captor’s background to bring the captive’s perturbed psyche to the foreground. So began Shakeel to sketch Pravar’s skewed past.

Mala was ten when Pravar was born, and soon thereafter, as their mother became sickly, their father took to drinking, further denting their family’s meager resources. What with a drunkard father to contend with, a sickly mother to attend to and a younger sibling to provide for, Mala began to mature more than her age. However, when her brother was ten, their father kicked the bucket, and shortly thereafter, thanks to her good looks and a relative’s good samaritanism, Suraiah, a measly clerk in the civil works department, came into her life as her man. Just the same, she was discomfited as he turned out to be utterly miserly, for she believed that a paisa well-spent was far more worthy than a horded rupee, but soon, as her mother too died, making her brother an orphan, her husband, in spite of his reservations, had to accommodate him in their home. Pravar was fourteen then.    

Sadly, that arrangement didn’t auger well for Pravar as he was torn between his sister’s affection and his brother-in-law’s resentment to his presence in the house, which turned him into a schizophrenic: while his physical proximity to her insensibly induced in him a sub-conscious sexual affinity with her, her marital closeness with the man he abhorred inexorably bred a sexual jealousy in him. And that made him an awkward being, perturbing Mala and annoying Suraiah but attracting Rajan, a hardened criminal, who took him under his tutelage. As his wayward ways that followed made his brother-in-law take jibe at his sister, it further fuelled his subconscious oneness with her; but when his nemesis died in a road mishap, with no rival to her affections, he began to dote upon her like never before, which suited her as well, for it catered to her innate need for male attention.

In time though, as she was absorbed in the department on compassionate grounds, she began leaning towards Madhu, her enamored boss, and for its part, destiny that scripts its acts in life’s plays with some denouement in mind, enabled Rajan to trick a young Natya into eloping with him. And that proved to be a double jeopardy for Pravar; bitten by Natya’s charms, even as he was eying her, seeing it as a travesty of his devotion to Mala, he was beset by qualms. But soon though, further accentuating his mental distress, as Mala became Madhu’s keep, and seeing her dote on the new man in her life, he was truly depressed. Soon, as Madhu reduced his young son Raghu into Mala’s errand