The Misfortune Cycle: River Desert

Chapter 19

Torun faced a bit of a cognitive dissonance as he sat on a chair in Ashraful's living room. Ashraful was a big guy. He also kept himself tidy and if the few times Torun had touched him was any evidence, fit as well.

Yet Ashraful's apartment was barely more than a single room. The dining room was the living room was the bedroom. An LED light shone overhead, overilluminating the small space. A stove had been sat on a table beside an open window to make for a kitchen, and beside the small single bed was a closet. The bathroom door was so narrow Torun wondered how Ashraful had fit through it minutes before.

And he was amused to see him fit through it again when he came out.

"Hey," Ashraful said, crossing the room to get to the stove, "Tea?"

Torun shrugged, "No milk."

"Couldn't get you if you asked," Ashraful said, laughing to hide his obvious nervousness.

Torun sighed, "Tea is fine, but I came here to talk about Karim's phone."

Ashraful paused in the middle of adding sugar to the tea.

"Jamal wasn't lying," Torun continued, "was he?"

Ashraful slowly shook his head.

"A phone on the boat would've been decisive evidence," Torun said, "Why would you fail to mention that?"

Ashraful added the sugar and closed the sugar jar.

"Karim told me his phone is back on the boat the first day," Ashraful said, "I came back home and tried to track it down. Turned out that it's turned off."

Torun said nothing.

"So I couldn't track it," Ashraful swallowed, "So it wasn't really important anymore."

"You didn't answer my question," Torun said, "Why didn't you tell me? We're in this case together."

Ashraful poured the tea down on two cups, head down.

Then he turned to Torun, "Your Shakhchunni isn't around, is she?"

Kalyani had excused herself as soon as the sun had gone down, back at the port. Torun had wondered if she could find her way to his apartment all the way from there, but then remembered that she had found him once already.

"Kalyani isn't around," Torun said, though he wondered what Ashraful would've said or done if she was.

Ashraful brought the cups and handed one to Torun.

"I wanted this case to go on for longer," Ashraful confessed, "If we found the boat that fast, we would've solved the case in a week or so."

Torun arched an eyebrow. The pay was good, yes, but that meant all the more possibilities of abandonment midway.

"For money?" Torun asked.

Ashraful nodded.

Torun pointed around the apartment, "You don't seem like someone who goes after a lot of money."

Ashraful kept quiet for a while, then said, "You know how I got kicked out of my job because I went after a big businessman?"

"Yes?"

"That big businessman sued my ass after I was out of the force," Ashraful sighed, "Over stalking and slander. One million taka."

Torun whistled, "So you're trying to earn money fast to get out of that?"

Ashraful nodded, "Either that or jail."

Torun couldn't help wondering if Abdul the Djinn could help with that.