Club You to Death by Anuja Chauhan (pdf e book reader .TXT) 📗

Nora Fatehi’s ‘O Saki Saki’, Bruno Mars’s ‘Uptown Funk’, and a final one Kashi isn’t familiar with. ‘Secrets’ by The Cheeky Peaches.

The two blue ticks beside the message reveal that this last song has been seen by Urvashi, but she hasn’t reacted to it. Nor has she reacted to his next – and final – message, which is a link of some sort.

‘That is a really old song,’ Bhavani Singh says surprised. ‘Matlab, from our times!’ He has a hazy memory from when he was young, of a girl band in the seventies – a blonde, a redhead and a brunette, belting it out in glittering catsuits. ‘Why would he send her that?’

‘Never heard of it,’ Kashi replies. ‘Maybe they were practicing a retro dance or something?’

They continue to scroll though WhatsApp.

‘Here’s a bunch of messages from Bambi,’ Kashi says, amused. ‘Leo keeps asking her if she is going to sign up for Zumba next month and she keeps making excuses and trying to wriggle out of it …’

He looks so relieved, Bhavani observes privately. What a fellow! If he likes her, why doesn’t he just tell her?

Something catches his eye. He frowns and quickly puts out one hand, staying Kashi from scrolling further.

‘Stop, vakeel sa’ab! See, Leo has sent that old song to Bambi ji too! She’s replied with two question marks and a comically scared face. And then he has sent her …’

He pauses, then continues, his voice low and musing, ‘He has sent her this link. Odd.’

He plucks the phone out of Kashi’s hand and clicks on www.badshahpurchildrensvillage.in.

Immediately, a bright blue banner flutters across the screen.

WELCOME TO THE BADSHAHPUR CHILDREN’S VILLAGE! JESUS IS LORD! DONATIONS WELCOME! it proclaims as it settles over an image of laughing children gathered before a red-brick building standing in what appears to be rural Haryana. A priest in a white cassock stands in the middle of the group, smiling.

‘Vicky!’ says Bhavani at once, pointing at the priest. ‘Whose mind will be blown if he watches pondys.’

‘Father Victor Emmanuel,’ Kashi says slowly. ‘That’s the orphanage I met Leo at.’

They stare at the screen, their minds computing this new information.

‘He sent Urvashi some link too,’ Bhavani recalls suddenly.

He checks, working the phone, then looks up at Kashi, his eyes glowing with excitement.

‘Urvashi Khurana, Roshni Aggarwal, Bambi Todi and the surgical strikes walla Gen. Mehra have all received the Cheeky Peaches song. Only Bambi has replied. The others haven’t said anything. Two blue ticks, but radio silence. And all of them, one hour later, have been sent the Badshahpur link by Leo. Again, no response at all. Just two blue ticks.’

‘Bambi, two aunties, and a general,’ Kashi says slowly. ‘Surely that’s odd? Why does Leo even know the general? He doesn’t do Zumba!’

Bhavani frowns. ‘Good point.’

‘My Dad isn’t too hot on Gen. Mehra,’ Kashi continues. ‘He was Dad’s junior in the IMA, but he got a bunch more promotions. Dad says he’s a kiss-up.’

‘He is,’ Bhavani agrees. ‘When we were young, we were taught that an officer should be loyal to the Constitution of India, nat the gourmint of India, but this Gen. Mehra clearly bunked those lessons.’

‘He’s insanely popular though,’ Kashi says.

‘Yes,’ Bhavani is starting to look extremely satisfied. ‘And a man with a reputation to maintain can easily be blackmailed.’

Kashi looks confused. ‘Blackmailed?’

The old ACP chuckles, nodding. Crime Branch regulars would have noticed that his homely face had started to shine with the luminous, beautifying glow of a Bollywood heroine in the ‘after’ part of a face cream commercial – this always happens when he achieves a breakthrough.

‘Yes, vakeel sa’ab, blackmail! What we have here is three rich ladies and one gent with a reputation to maintain. And they’ve all been sent this song! What other conclusion could we possibly draw?’

‘I don’t understand what you’re getting at.’ Kashi frowns. ‘Sure, Bambi’s rich, but she’s never done anything so shady that somebody could blackmail her for it. Besides, she’s the kind of person who needs to regurgitate everything that happens to her on a daily basis or she gets physically ill! I doubt she’d have a deep dark secret. She’s just not made that way.’

He looks up at the policeman with defiant, hostile eyes. Back off, they are saying quite clearly.

Bhavani backtracks smoothly. ‘Well, maybe he was wrong about Bambi ji. She is the only one who has sent a casual, puzzled reply. The others have gone as still and silent as if a snake has sniffed them. It’s suspicious.’

‘I don’t see why,’ Kashi insists stubbornly. ‘I don’t know how you’re getting blackmail from all this, anyway!’

Bhavani smiles. ‘That is because you are too young to have heard Secrets by the Cheeky Peaches. Listen.’

He taps the screen.

An insistent back beat, the thrum of a string guitar, and a husky female voice:

You think your secret’s safe,

You think you left no trace

You’re sure, that no one knows

You’re smelling … like a rose

But fate has a way of catching up with sinners

At the end of the day there are no free dinners

And I will make you pay

Oh, I will make you pay

P p p p p pay

P p p p p pay

P p p p p pay

P p p p p pay

Oh yeah, you better be worried,

Cos I know where the bodies are buried.

Pay, pay, pay and stay worried,

Cos I know where the bodies are buried.

Bhavani, watching Kashi’s face over the pulsating iPhone, sees the confusion clear as the young lawyer’s mind wraps itself around the only, inevitable solution.

The song ends.

‘Kyun?’ demands Bhavani. ‘What do you think now?’

‘He seems to have been blackmailing the rich to give to the poor,’ Kashi admits slowly. ‘Like Robin Hood. The kind of wild, romantic scheme that’s a socialist’s wet dream. Not bad for Lambodar/Leo!’

The traffic pile-up at the Delhi–Badshahpur Toll Gate is almost a kilometre long and half a kilometre wide. Vendors criss-cross the eight lanes of slow-moving, smoke-spewing, drearily honking vehicles, selling peanuts, jasmine strands, cucumber slices and wedges of coconut to jaundiced looking commuters,