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I smiled at him and put an arm around his shoulder, enjoying the he flinched in fear at the touch.
“Come, let’s not fight. I’m really sorry for the loss of your wife. Now, if you don’t want to join her immediately, start talking,” I suggested politely.
“Sahab, he’ll kill me if I talk,” he whined.
“And I’ll kill you if you don’t. The difference is that I will give you such a painful death that even God won’t be able to put the pieces of your soul together in the afterlife. You need to pick now, Manto Singh. And I promise you that if you tell me what happened, I will keep you safe, no matter what. I won’t let him get to you. Word of the beast,” I swore.
He broke down weeping.
“She was a good woman, Sahab. I’m not performing these last rites out of fear that she will come back to haunt me. She would never do that. I’m doing this because I loved her,” he wailed.
“You had a funny way of showing your love,” I said with disgust.
“I was weak! Ayush Bhai is a jallaad. People call you a beast, but you’re nothing like him. His cruelty knows no bounds. And I was scared of what he’d do to my Sheela if she didn’t confess. That’s why I told her to throw herself on his mercy.”
“What happened? Tell me the whole thing from the start,” I ordered. “Every little detail.”
“Ayush Bhai put me in charge of his newest dhanda. Girls were being brought to us in big containers from the villages around here, and I was in charge of distribution,” he said, burying his hand in his face.
“Speak clearly,” I snapped.
I knew what he meant, but I wanted the full story.
“I was in charge of delivering them to brothels all over the country. Sheela found one container parked outside my office one day. We’d had a fight the previous night because she thought I was with another woman. She saw the container and thought I had made a love nest there, so she came back in the middle of the night, broke open the padlock in anger, and found the girls. As I said, she was a good woman. She freed them all. She even paid for them to travel to women’s shelters all around the state. A container full of women was cargo worth crores of rupees. Naturally, Ayush Bhai was livid when he saw the empty box.”
“So you threw your wife under the bus?”
“I thought he’d warn her never to do that again. I was willing to cover the losses even if it took me a lifetime, Sahab. I never thought he’d kill her like that. He didn’t even give me a chance to beg for her life,” wept Manto Singh.
I didn’t know what I felt when I stared at this broken man. Anger, disgust and contempt, for sure. But I also felt pity for a man who was doing his best to survive in a dirty world.
“What did he do with the body?”
“It’s buried in his backyard, near the lemon trees.”
“Alright, Manto Singh. You’re coming with me to the police station and putting all this on record. Will you testify against the man who killed your wife?”
He nodded slowly.
“I will, Sahab. Even if he kills me for it. You just find a way to keep me safe until I’ve spoken in court. I don’t care what happens to me after that,” he said.
I took him to the car and patched him up as best as I could before I drove him to police headquarters.
Commissioner Dhaliwal was waiting for me, as promised. He was very surprised to see me there.
“I came as soon as you called, Randheer. But I can’t imagine what could be so important that you had to see me so soon after your wedding! Did your wife kick you out of your palace already?” he teased.
“I’m just giving my wife a very strange wedding present, Commissioner Sahab,” I quipped before I told him the whole story.
“Bring her to the station tomorrow morning, Randheer. I’ll need her statement before I can apply for the warrant to search Goel House for the dead body.”
And now, I stood before Diya, waiting for her to turn away from me because who would want to be married to such a beast? My heart sank at the horror in her face as she stared at my bloodied knuckles. Before I could explain further, she marched into the bathroom and returned with my big first aid box.
‘Sit down,” she snarled, pushing me onto the bed.
I was silent as she cleaned and bandaged my hands with angry movements. Her anger was valid. I had left the house without a word to anyone. That was no way for a bridegroom to behave.
“Say something, Diya. Are you happy with your wedding present?”
