Cloaked Intentions

Chapter 1

She paced outside the guest room. 

She wrung her hands as she kept glancing at the door in front of her.  Her hands had gone cold and clammy.

Her father–a well-known businessman in Kolkata–Shekhar Gadodia looked at her pointedly. "Swara!" he said firmly, "Stop pacing."

She stilled immediately; resting instead against the wall opposite the guest room. She looked at her father tentatively. He had already reprimanded once for what had happened.

The guest room door opened.  

Dr Subhash Bose–their family physician and neighbour–walked out with their butler, Shambhu kaka.  

Shekhar motioned the doctor to follow him into the study. 

Swara followed behind quietly.

"So what is the situation, Subhash?" Shekhar asked

"He has some scraps and scratches on his arms. I have bandaged the worst ones already," Subhash explained. 

"The man is fairly tall. The bumper hit his shin but saved his knees. He will have some muscular pain, but no fracture fortunately. The gash on his head missed his major arteries so the blood loss wasn't as bad. He has some bruising on his ribs  and a bump of the back of his head," Subhash said, "That bump is what I am slightly worried about. It could turn out to be nothing or he could end up with mild concussion." 

Shekhar and Swara glanced at the doctor nervously as he motored on.

"What I mean is that he could have some dizzy spells in the worst case.  Fortunately, he is a strong young man who seems to have taken good care of his health. Any weaker man would have sustained much worse impact from this accident and could have even ended up in emergency ward. You are lucky this man has strong constitution," Subhash finally clarified.

Shekhar nodded. "When will he get well? When do you expect him to wake up?"

"I have given him a mild sedative to help him get some rest to avoid some of the worse effects of any concussion, but he should be awake by tomorrow morning. As for when he will get well, looking at his constitution I would imagine it might be in a couple of days, at most."

"Baba (father)--," Swara said, speaking for the first time after coming home and explaining the situation to her father.

Shekhar had a grim look as he looked at her. 

Swara held back and remained quiet.

"Did you find out who he is? Anything from his phone or wallet?" Dr Bose asked

"I think the rain might have damaged his phone. I have asked Shambhu to let it dry completely and then charge it. We might know more then. As for his wallet, there were a few credit cards there, some money and his driving license," Shekhar explained

"Who is he then?" Dr Bose asked

"Here have a look," Shekhar said handing him the driver's license.

"Agarwal. He is 27 years old, close enough to what I guessed as well. This is a Mumbai address. What is he doing all the way in Kolkata then?" Dr Bose mused almost to himself

Shekhar nodded. He had the same question himself. "I had the emergency number linked to the license found out and called it, but no one picked up the phone."

"I guess we will need to wait to see if his phone reveals anything. Anyway, there isn't much to be done right now. I will come over first thing tomorrow morning and we can talk to the man himself," Dr Bose said.