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

Urvashi inclines her head graciously. ‘You’re a thorough man, that much at least can be said for you.’

‘Thank you! But, madam, don’t mind, but just for one minute, a short time ago, we felt that there was something you wanted to share with us …’

She doesn’t deny this – just looks at him with careful and total concentration for a moment, then shakes her head decisively. ‘It’s got nothing to do with all this. Can I leave now?’

9

An Eye in the Wall

The final interview for the day, with a very sober and wary Roshni Aggarwal, begins on an uneventful note. She says vaguely that Leo had sent her many songs, ‘Secrets’ being just one of them. When questioned about her donations to the Badshahpur Children’s Village, she gets suddenly emotional.

‘Ab what to hide from you,’ she says, tears spilling from her mascaraed eyes and spilling down her bony face. ‘You are the police, you know everything anyway! My son … has some … problems. And when your child has problems, you try to bribe the Gods, so that these problems will go away. Donating to Badshahpur, a place where Leo did some volunteer work, was one such bribe for me.’

And that is all she has to say on the subject.

By lunch time, Bhavani is alone in Guest Cottage No. 5, all his interviews done for the day. He sinks into the floral couch, puts his feet up on the coffee table, rakes his hands through his hair, and thinks furiously.

They are all lying. They have to be. Bambi has already confirmed that Leo was a blackmailer! But how had Leo cottoned on to Bambi’s mother’s secret? Did he have some inside information? We will have to instruct PK to interrogate all the staff at the Todi house …

His mind turns back to Roshni Aggarwal. Roshni’s ‘secret’ must be connected to her problematic son. Stands to reason.

Picking up his phone, he calls the criminal data base team at Tis Hazari. ‘We want information on an Aryaman Aggarwal,’ he says. ‘Take down his details.’

Presently, he hangs up, his mind now on Behra Mehra.

Mehra’s ‘secret’ is probably to do with young Ganga and her estranged husband. Where is that fellow now? Have he and Ganga broken it off entirely? Or does he still get drunk and visit her? How to find out? He can ask Bambi Todi, but she … she is clearly biased towards the girl. He drums his fingers on the table, then sits bolt upright, his grey hair rumpled.

‘PK!’ Bhavani Singh roars. ‘PK!’

The inspector rushes into the cottage. ‘Yes, sir!’

‘Interrogate all the staff at the Todi house next door. Find out if any of them were friendly with Leo Matthew.’

Padam Kumar snaps to attention. ‘Yes, sir!’

Bhavani looks him up and down, taking in his height, his broad shoulders, his fair complexion, and the innocent ruddiness of his face. Yes, PK will do. He will do very nicely, actually.

‘And one more thing.’ He smiles cosily at the unsuspecting inspector. ‘There is a kirana store inside the club itself, called Daily Needs. Go in there and strike up a conversation with the young lady behind the counter, one Ganga Kumar. Find out, very subtly, who and where her husband is.’

Padam Kumar baulks. ‘But, sir, how?’

‘Arrey, you are meeting a lot of girls nowadays, aren’t you?’ the ACP replies, a touch irascibly. ‘Go meet this one too. She is separated from her husband. Maybe you will fall in love with her. Maybe that is why the Fates have conspired to bring us here!’

‘A separated woman!’ Padam Kumar gasps. ‘What are you saying, sir!’

Brushing off these protests, Bhavani waves the scandalized inspector out of the cottage, then sits back to muse on Urvashi.

What could her secret be?

Hadn’t she protested too strongly against his suggestion of intimate photos? Insisted too vehemently that she wasn’t a pathetic middle-aged woman having a mid-life crisis? Because it did make sense for Leo to have been blackmailing her – with the DTC election and Chrysanthemum’s Rs 50 crore funding on the line, the stakes for her had been super high.

It’s just a question of gathering proof. He presses the intercom.

‘Haan, Ram Palat, suno.’

He gives the young computer operator some instructions. Then he hangs up, sits back on the floral couch, puts his feet up on the coffee table again, crosses his hands over his stomach and closes his eyes.

‘Enough,’ he murmurs. ‘Easy does it, Bhavani. Do nat strain. If you strain, all you will get is haemorrhoids of the brain …’

Meanwhile, Padam Kumar trudges down to Daily Needs, feeling rather awkward and resentful.

Trust Bhavani sir to make a joke out of everything! He can’t meet just any girl! One with a vanished husband, at that, belonging to God alone knows what caste, having what astrological chart, and what background!

But when he reaches the store, he perks up slightly. The girl behind the counter, placing a palmful of jasmine flowers into a lapis lazuli bowl before Saraswati ji is as graceful as Saraswati ji herself. She is dressed in a meticulously pleated cream sari, with her black hair oiled and combed into a smooth plait, and gold studs gleaming against her glowing dusky skin. Padam Kumar checks her on the mental shade card he carries inside his head, calibrated from Ajay Devgn to Alia Bhatt, and decides that though she is not as fair as he himself is, she is definitely not on the Devgn side of the scale either.

This important point settled, he smiles at her, and then, as she smiles inquiringly back, he experiences both a mild electric shock, and an epiphany. She looks just like the girl at the end of the Jungle Book movie – the girl who drops her waterpot to get Mowgli to speak to her.

‘Huh hullo ji,’ he manages to say.

‘Hello.’ Her voice is low and musical, and clearly, she is not uncomfortable with English.

‘I … am …’ He licks his lips and looks about the shop. A display