“Shh… Renuka, you must calm down. This is not the place to raise doubts and suspicions,” Sonia admonished. “Can we go into the house? I’d like to see where it all happened.”
“I think we can. I’ve already told Inspector Shinde that you’re coming. Vidya lives on the first floor. He is talking to the Sahays right now.”
She led the way up the stairs and to an apartment on the left. Two Constables were standing outside the door, but Renuka walked past them and into the small hall. On the sofa a middle- aged couple sat together. Mr Sahay, a tall thin man with a balding head, wore a crumpled white kurta pyjama. His wife, wrapped in a printed white cotton sari, sat beside him, her pony-tailed, oiled head bent, intent on what he was saying. Both wore impatient, irritated expressions.. Instantly any vestige of sympathy that Sonia would’ve felt for these people vanished. Beside them, a young man slumped, his head in his hands. Medium-heighted and dusky, Parmeet Sahay was the spitting image of his father. Sonia’s eyes rested on him with candid interest.
An Inspector in uniform stood by the grilled window, which displayed a queue of potted, indoor plants. The policeman was looking down at the trio seated on the sofa. Silence seemed to fill the house. As if he had just dropped a question which these three couldn’t answer. He glanced up, as the Renuka and Sonia entered the room.
“Inspector Shinde, can I speak to you for a moment?” Renuka asked.
Immediately the Inspector strode towards them.
“This is Sonia Samarth. She is the detective I told you about,” Renuka introduced in a low voice.
“Sonia Samarth… The name sounds familiar,” the policeman frowned.
“I run a detective agency called Stellar Investigations,” Sonia told him.
“Of course! I remember now… astrology and crime, I’d read about you in the papers. It’s a pleasure to meet you.”
“Vidya was my best friend and I want Sonia to look into the matter,” Renuka explained.
The Inspector smiled. “We’ve finished with the place actually - the body has been taken away and the fingerprint experts have already left. I don’t mind if you take a look around. Anything more you discover will only help us in our case.”
“Certainly. And I assure you I won’t meddle with the working of the police,” Sonia added.
“But we don’t want any outside meddling!” Mr Sahay spoke up harshly. “Our daughter-in-law is dead! It’s bad enough that Police have entered this house. Now a private detective - !”
“Babuji, take it easy. Let them do their job!” Parmeet spoke up wearily.
“Do their job by asking us stupid questions? As if we killed our own daughter-in-law, when it’s obvious that she committed suicide?” Mrs Sahay demanded harshly.
“If it’s a suicide, then where’s the suicide note?” Inspector Shinde turned to the couple. “Look here, Mrs Sahay. No one’s flinging any accusations yet. But that doesn’t mean we’re not going to follow the evidence. We found a bottle of sleeping pills in your cupboard. If your daughter-in-law committed suicide, what was an empty bottle of sleeping pills doing in your cupboard?”
“We told you before, my Mother takes sleeping pills occasionally! Many times Vidya herself has given those pills to her. As a matter of fact, so have I!” the dead woman’s husband answered.
“But it was full the last time I saw that bottle!” Mrs Sahay declared.
“And it is empty now. And found in your cupboard. Vidya drank a glass of milk before sleeping and she was dead by morning. There is every chance that glass of milk contained the same pills which belonged to the bottle in the cupboard. And if that happens, you can forget all notions of suicide,” the Inspector remarked grimly.
“That woman was trouble when she was alive and she’s still trouble now that she’s dead!” Parmeet’s mother grumbled nastily.
“Maa!” Parmeet uttered in a frustrated tone.
Renuka turned a furious face on the older woman. “Vidya gave every ounce of her energy, time, and love for this family, and this is all you can say for her? That she was trouble? The fact was that, despite you making life miserable for her, she stuck by your side, refusing to leave her home and a husband who didn’t deserve her! And now she’s gone! So now you can be happy!”
“Renuka, stop it!” Sonia put a firm hand on the agitated girl’s arm. “Let the police deal with this. Show me Vidya’s room, will you? Inspector, do you mind?”
The Inspector gave her a go-ahead signal while Renuka looked daggers at the in-laws. Both glowered back at her. Sonia prodded the girl and she moved reluctantly. Jatin followed.
“It’s a three-bedroom apartment. And this is Vidya’s room,” Renuka stepped through the doorway of the scene where her friend had breathed her last.
A double bed took up most of the space. A table and chair and two steel cupboards stood against the wall. A window with a sliding pane overlooked the courtyard and the street. Sonia stood in the centre of the room and tried to imagine what had transpired. Vidya had been administered a dose of sleeping pills. She had drunk a glass of milk before going to bed and had been found dead at dawn. Had the pills been in the milk? And who had put them in there? The obvious suspect was, of course, Mrs Sahay. After all, according to the Inspector, the bottle was found in her cupboard. Had Mrs Sahay got rid of Vidya,
