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“Hardly! A forced confession won’t stand up in court. I merely… encouraged him to tell the truth. He did the rest of his own accord. I promise you there was no coercion on my part. I wouldn’t do anything to weaken our case against Ayush Goel.”
Dheer sounded so civilised, but the blood on his hands told a very different tale. I wondered who the real Dheer was because right now, the man I had married felt like a stranger.
CHAPTER 18
DHEER
Normally, a bridegroom had to put up with goodhearted ribbing from his friends and male relatives about his wedding night, but I was spared the embarrassment because the only male guests at my wedding were Diya’s father and brother. And they were far too busy glaring at me to rib me.
I knew they were both unhappy about this wedding, but they had to put up with it because Diya’s safety mattered more than anything else. I invited them to the den for a quick drink before I went upstairs, and that did the trick. Looking as if they wanted me to choke on my drink, they both took their leave and retreated to their bedrooms.
And I headed straight for the side door that led to the driveway. An armoured car was already waiting for me.
“Chhoti basti le chalo,” I told the chauffeur, referring to the small hamlet outside Trikhera.
That’s where our man, Manto Singh, was holed up.
I took the coordinates and description of his house from the personal investigator I’d hired to find him but asked the team to stay away from the location. Plausible deniability. They couldn’t testify in court about what they didn’t know.
The car drove up right into the middle of the small hamlet. The mukhiya came running out of his house to greet me, but I held up a hand and shook my head. I put a finger to my lips and nodded towards his house. Mukhiya Ji didn’t have to be told twice. He scuttled back into his house, as did the other villagers. They had a good sense of when to disappear because that instinct had kept them alive for years.
Soon, the village square was deserted. People shut their windows and bolted their doors as I walked towards the house. I paused in the doorway and sniffed a few times.
I could smell incense. Well, that was odd. Normally, people like Manto Singh drank themselves into a stupor when they were hiding because they couldn’t deal with the anxiety of the situation. Why was he burning agarbattis at night instead?
I walked into the house silently and found the first room empty. I explored some more and barked out a loud laugh when I found him. He was in the small kitchen, and he wasn’t alone. There was a pandit, who was performing a puja. The dead woman’s photograph was placed in the centre of the shrine and was surrounded by flowers and agarbattis.
Manto Singh stood up angrily.
“Kaun hai bey?” he yelled.
“Tera baap,” I said drily, taking my shoes off outside the room before I sauntered in. “No puja is going to save you from the wrath of your dead wife. Haven’t you told the villagers she’s dead? Is that why you’re performing her last rites at night?”
“It has nothing to do with them,” he retorted, looking scared.
I shook my head and tutted softly.
“Why so secretive, Manto Singh? Why wouldn’t you want to grieve your beloved wife openly?”
“Who the hell are you, motherfucker? Who sent you here?”
“Your wife sent me here because she misses you and wants to see you again. I’m here to arrange for that happy reunion. Pandit Ji, don’t mind me. Keep saying your prayers. Our friend here is going to need every one of them,” I said, clapping Manto Singh on the back and sitting down next to him.
I waited for the puja to be finished out of respect for the dead woman because she deserved her last rites. Even if they were being performed by her murdering husband.
As soon as the pandit gave us the aarti, I handed him five thousand bucks and asked him to pull the door shut behind him. He took the hint and scampered out of the room, leaving me alone with Manto Singh who was furious and terrified at the same time.
I smiled at him and before he could react to my shit-starting smile, I grabbed him by the back of his neck and slammed his face into the concrete floor right in front of his wife’s picture. I heard the crack of a bone and knew I had broken his nose.
“Do you know who I am?” I whispered in his ear.
He stared at me blankly for a minute with blood dripping from his face, and then he charged me like an angry bull, slamming me into the steel cupboard behind me. His massive fist came flying at my face, but I ducked out of the way, and he punched the steel cupboard. I grabbed him by the hand, twisted his arm behind him, and slammed his head into the cupboard a few times until there was a clear dent in the steel.
Manto Singh groaned and staggered on his feet as he turned around slowly.
He pointed a finger at me accusingly.
“The beast… you’re the beast,” he slurred.
