Prey on the Prowl - A Crime Novel, BS Murthy [best contemporary novels .txt] 📗

pills, but sadly for her, she couldn’t die, but rattled by that, he became remorseful and started talking in terms of ending his own life; and it was his psychological imbalance and the hazards of drunken driving that came to plague her. When he asked for Murali’s photograph, she handed him one.

But the next day, she came to inform him that her husband had returned only to remain more depressed than ever before, and even though she urged him to take it easy, he was still harping on his past; what’s worse he says that he had no right to live. So, moved by her predicament, as Dhruva sounded sympathetic, she thanked him for his empathy, and said that she would try to persuade him to consult a psychiatrist. Believing that that she deserved better and thinking that if only he met her as a miss, he wished her well and bade her good bye.  

However, shortly thereafter, one evening in the police club, he heard a colleague say that only recently, at a desolate level crossing, not far off from Hyderabad, a man’s body was retrieved from his car, accidentally crushed on the railway tracks, so much for the railway safety! Moreover, as the graphologist confirmed that the writing in the suicide note found in the victim’s wallet matched his handwriting, and as the post-mortem report too indicated a drunken death, the case was closed as there was no reason to proceed further.

But as crime would have it, it readily occurred to him, what if Neha’s missing person complaint then was but a red herring, so he thought it fit to delve into her life and times, and as he gathered in the grapevine that Murali, suspecting her fidelity, was wont to ill-treat her, he could smell the rat. So, out of professional curiosity, he unofficially involved himself in the case, and upon closer scrutiny of the suicide note it became apparent to him that it was an odd tear-out from a foolscap paper and its tone and tenor suggested that possibly it could be a part of some story penned by the deceased. However, such a possibility amused him for muse or no muse, these days; all are at writing fiction, which, besides inundating the world of letters, made it difficult for the readers to separate the literary grain from the wordy chaff.

Whatever, were it not possible that Neha, having laid her hands on a manuscript containing that suicide thing, possibly returned by some magazine house, prepared the script for her husband’s end with it; so he went round the publishing houses, in one of which, an assistant editor readily recalled the queer story with that suicide pitch, the manuscript of which was returned to the sender only recently. With the needle of suspicion so firmly tilted towards her murderous hand, he confronted her with that damned evidence.

Owning up her guilt, a teary-eyed Neha told him how it all started – since long, her husband began treating her merely as a sexual bowl, that too when he could not get hold of some whore or the other, and adding insult to injury, whenever he laid her, he made it a point to make that clear to her. How mean men can become to demean women, she lamented, and slighted thus, she seduced Mohan, his close friend, for sex as well as self-esteem. However, as her man got wind of their affair, he calibrated his responses cunningly; on one hand he started sponging on Mohan at the pain of breaking up with him, and on the other, he began scheming to ruin his marriage by estranging his wife from him. So, not wanting to be the cause of Mohan’s marital ruin, she alerted him to Murali’s designs; she even offered to end their affair; but afraid of Murali’s potential for mischief, Mohan thought of silencing him by a supari, but fearing that the foolhardy of a third party could spell trouble for both of them, she chartered the course of that murder, as by then she had that fatal manuscript in her hand.   

So, on that fateful day, she induced her man to drink to the hilt, and when he pissed out, for an alibi, she joined Mohan waiting at the Odeon, which they left as soon as the movie began. Thereby reaching home on the sly, she got her husband into her car for him to have fresh air at the city’s outskirts, so she made it to the earmarked place with him in their car, while Mohan followed in his vehicle. There, steering her car onto the desolate railway tracks, and making Murali sit in the driving seat and sitting beside him to ensure that he stayed put, she awaited the scheduled train to speed in, and upon citing it, got down from it to witness the good riddance of their bad rubbish. Soon, when it was all over for Murali, as Mohan drove in from a nearby hiding place, proud of that perfect murder, they drove back to the city to begin life afresh as man and his secret wife.

While Radha wondered how Neha’s concern for her paramour’s wife motivated her to murder her own man, Dhruva saw it merely as Mohan’s means to ward off his ill-will and Neha’s escape route from his cruel ways. Besides, isn’t the nature of the species to devour others for the sake of self-preservation? So he buried the murder in the coffin of suicide. Admiring his empathy for the ‘preys on the prowl’, she sank into his arms saying that it would appear as if without some divine hand to guide it, there could never be a perfect murder, and added that should things mundane ever make it imperfect, maybe, the culprit could still count on him.

 

Chapter 21

Deaths in Spandan

 

That morning, when Kavya returned to Dhruva’s ‘think of the devil’ welcome and Radha’s ‘what’s the news’ query, Raju greeted her with a cup of hot filter coffee.

However, as Radha began exhorting Kavya to lead her to the leads that she might have laid her hands on, Dhruva would have none of that for he felt that, like it’s not wise to mix drinks, it’s imprudent to mix their leads. What with her enthusiasm reined in thus, as Radha kept mum, he led Kavya into the sprawling lawns to have a first-hand account of her fact-findings.

Kavya told him that her guesswork at Guntur took her to an old woman, who, having recognized Ranjit from his old photographs she carried, recalled that years back; he lived with his young wife nearby. Leave alone him, even she didn’t mix with any, save Shyamala, an aunt of her childhood mate Rani; so all suspected that, having eloped, they were covering their tracks. But soon, as he vanished, leaving her in the lurch, the entire neighborhood was agog with ‘I told you so’, and when she too left shortly thereafter, no one knows where, the grapevine only grew with more rumors. Anyway, that was so long ago, and she was not sure whether even Shyamala knew more about that girl’s elopement that went awry. However, when Kavya wanted to contact Shyamala, the old woman said that she had been to the U.S to help her daughter deliver, and thanks to the six-month cap, she could be back home anytime.     

Capping her trip, Kavya informed him, though she gave his c/o address to that woman to write to her on Shyamala’s return, maybe, she need to go there after some time to catch up with her. When he wanted to know about the reverse queries from the oldie, she told him smilingly that luckily, she was more of a transmitter than a receiver, as otherwise it would have been well nigh impossible for her to make any headway.

Thereafter, leaving the women to their ways, and reaching his study, he recalled Radha’s intriguing description of her childhood friend as ‘full-soul mate and half-namesake’, and thought what if Shyamala’s niece turns out to be her long lost friend; won’t it mean that Ranjit’s deserted wife was none other than she herself. If so, what an irony it would be that unknowingly, Kavya had stumbled upon her husband’s long shadow over the very woman rivaling her for his affections! But yet, out of consideration for her rival’s position in his life, she subdues her emotions for him generated in that burst of their passion; why, was he any less constrained in reining in his raging desire as it’s inappropriate to woo a widow in her mourning. Yet, when the time is ripe to court her, as it can never be a case of either/ or of these fascinating women, there’s no other way for him but ménage a trios with them.

That evening, when Radha proposed that the apprentice should celebrate her maiden foray with three cheers over drinks and as Kavya said that she was a game for it, Dhruva said in half jest that the senior might rue her move for the junior may outwit her. Then, mixing drink for them, as Radha said in jest that it may pay to keep the other woman high, especially when the stakes were high, Kavya retorted smilingly that she would oblige her to make good her lost time. Thus, after a couple of drinks, as if to make good her promise, a tipsy Kavya wanted to have a third binge, but even though he was against it, yet as she insisted for a large, Radha broke the deadlock by mixing a small one for her. So, when Raju came to announce dinner for them, Radha said bottoms up, Dhruva stubbed his cigar, and Kavya sipped the last dreg.  

Towards the evening the next day, when the threesome were playing rummy, Raju said that Inspector Simon, who replaced Shakeel at the Jubilee Hills Police Station, came to see him. By then having learned that the newcomer was advised by all to avoid him as Shakeel had bungled up the fake-notes case at his behest, Dhruva sensed that his was no friendly visit. So, stepping into the anteroom tentatively and having greeted the visitor warmly, he enquired in jest whether he came to the Castle Hills for sightseeing; but when the cop said, rather tersely, that he was there to question Kavya about the mysterious deaths  in her Spandan, Dhruva knew it was no joking time.

Evan as Dhruva led him into the study, Simon said that informed about foul smell in her house, they broke open its main door in the morning and found therein the decomposed bodies of a young couple. With no traces of any bodily injuries or any signs of forcible entry into the premises, prima facie, it appeared that they might have died in a suicide pact. But when he was told that the dead were not the inmates, and it was only recently that the house owner died mysteriously, he decided to personally investigate the matter. As if it’s not puzzle enough that the house was found locked from inside even as the housewife was not residing in it for quite a while, the assertion of a chowkidar in the locality that he had seen a burka-clad woman enter the house four days back made the case all the more intriguing. Since the neighbors were unaware of the housewife’s whereabouts, he enquired at the Jubilee Hills Post Office and came to know that her letters were being redirected to 9, Castle Hills, which should explain his rather unwelcome visit.

When Dhruva broke the shattering news, shocked beyond belief, Kavya wanted to go to Spandan to see it all for herself, but Simon said that first she should try to identify the dead at the Gandhi Hospital. So, led by Simon, and accompanied by Dhruva and Radha, she made it to the hospital, where in its mortuary; she could identify the dead as Pravar and Natya. However, while Simon was recording Kavya’s statement, Radha wanted