Let's End Your FEAR

Chapter 5

" You were all over the news last month for that Knots and Crosses killer thing. I saw more of you than I did of my own family."

Anushka gave a pointed look, which Imran studiously ignored.

"So you have questions, am I right?"

"If you think you are up to it, Yes."

Apparently she was not only up to it, she'd decided to skip the questions and go straight to the answers.

"All right. So this is what happened. I got a call from manager while I was in kitchen. I rushed here and there was Vivaan lying on the stairs. It could have been anybody since his head is missing but I know my Vivaan better than anyone here. That mark on his left arm confirmed it was him."

She continued with a sigh

"Imran thinks I should have left his brother in law outside here on stairs, leave him there so strangers could come and see his head missing.

"For , God's sake Anushka..."

"But this is not how families take care of each other. So I bought him up here. Made him presentable, called Dad, and then I called Imran, who hasn't answered his phone in 6 months."

"Anushka, it was a crime scene", Imran said tiredly

"And should I know this? Am I a police? I called a person who is friends with police, but he didn't answer his phone."

Imran closed his eyes to this woman for a long time

"I'M NOT WHO I WAS ANYMORE."

Nakuul had an immediate flashback to a day almost a year ago when he'd passed Imran Syed as he went out of the front door of the police station.

"You'll be back, Syed." Shetty had said , because he didn't know what else to say to a man who had lost so much and worse yet, he couldn't understand a man who could walk away so easily from everything he loved.

Imran had smiled. Just a little. "I'm not the journalist anymore, Nakuul."

Shetty shifted back to the present in time to hear Yadav asking the usual litany: "Did Vivaan Singh have any enemies? Any unusual dealings?...."

"Unusual dealings?" Anushka snapped.

"What's that supposed to mean? You think we're dealing with drugs? Running a sex slavery ring? What?"

Yadav had never responded very well to sarcasm, and his face started to turn red. They'd dealt with their share  of grieving relatives over the years, and Yadav did okay with the ones who fell apart. They tore him up , and he suffered for a long time afterwards, but least he knew how to respond to them.

People were supposed to fall apart when a relative died. That fit in with Yadav's image of life and death and love and family, and made it easy for him to be soft- spoken, gentle, as comforting as a cop could be in such a situation.

But the angry ones who lashed out, or the stoic ones who kept their feelings close to the vest, always threw him into a tailspin, and Anushka Singh seemed to be a combination of the two.

"Excuse me, Mrs Singh," Shetty interrupted gently, eliciting an eye roll from Yadav.

"Would it be too difficult for you to take me outside and show me where you found your husband? Maybe walk me through it step by step, while Yadav talks to your father in law- Sikandar Singh? We can get through this faster then."

The reminder of finding her husband's body brought the first sign of weakness to her eyes. Just a flicker but it was there.

"I'm really sorry to have to ask you to do this. If it's too hard, we don't have to do it right now."

Her gaze sharpened immediately.

"Off course we have to do it now, inspector. Now is all we have."

She marched toward the door, a little soldier focusing on the mission, so she didn't have to think of anything else. Shetty hurried to open it for her

"Wait a minute." Imran frowned.

"Where's Karan... Anushka? Why isn't he here yet?"

"Karan who?"

"Damnit Anushka, don't tell me you didn't call him...."

She was out of the room before he could finish.

"Shit."

"Who's Karan?" Shetty asked, still holding the door.

"Karan Singh. Her son. They haven't talked in a long time, but god, his father just died... I guess I gotta call him."

When Imran went to the counter and started punching numbers into his phone, Yadav walked over to Shetty and said under his breath,

"Listen, while you're out there talking to the old lady, why don't you ask her how a 90 kg peanut managed to drag over 150 kg of weight all the way in here, then heft it onto that table with maid's help."

"Gee, Mr. Super Cop Viraj, thanks for  the tip."

"Glad to help."

"You don't like her much do you?"

"Hey, I like her fine, except for the fact that she's got a personality like ground glass."

"Huh, She never mentioned your outfit. I'd say that was kindness."

"This is the deal. I'm thinking, How the hell did she move him? So I answer myself: Everybody is lying, She paid them, and just made everyone say he was decapitated outside, Cut his head since he must have outsmarted her with some good answers, soooooo, we'd think, we didn't have a crime scene."

Shetty thought about that for a minute.

"Interesting. Devious. I like the way you think."

"Thank you."

Shetty opened the door to go outside.

"But she didn't do it."

"Damnit Nakuul, you don't know that ... "

"Yeah. I do."

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