‘But what am I to do, Uncle? I’m stuck in a trap!’
‘Do what you should have done a couple of years ago. Do what your mother should have done after you were born. Had she cut your father loose, you wouldn’t have been in this plight. Sarah was a wealthy lady once, wealthier than I am now. You do what I say, and I’ll reconsider every decision I made about you.’
‘You mean … you mean …’ Michelle trailed off.
‘Reclaim your life, Michelle. Cut Murthy adrift. Divorce him.’
7
The party was nicely under way in the spacious drawing room, which could have easily accommodated double–or even triple, at a pinch–the number of people there in it. Bhaskar had planned to have twelve people in all, exactly a dozen. Eleven was an unlucky number for the Fernandez clan, he had insisted, and thirteen even more so–it was the unluckiest number of them all, especially for dinner. That, in part, explained why he had invited Abbas.
‘I don’t want this to be my last supper,’ he had said earlier. ‘And today is Friday. The number thirteen and the day do not mix well either.’
Coming from a brutally pragmatic man, this had surprised Athreya. The other members of the family had nodded in agreement, especially Michelle. Athreya had wondered who the thirteenth person could potentially have been. Murthy? He could think of no one else.
The room was lit dimly by several low-wattage lamps that together cast a soft radiance. Cocktail snacks were placed at different spots within easy reach of where people had gathered, and Murugan was continuously replenishing the plates. Bhaskar, with a bright red-and-green woollen blanket covering his legs, was in his wheelchair at the centre of the room along with Sebastian, playing the sociable host to Abbas, Phillip and Varadan.
Abbas was immaculately dressed in expensive clothes, while Varadan was neatly turned out in understated professional attire. Phillip’s shirt was similar to Bhaskar’s, but the overall look was that of a shabby painter.
The four cousins were having a ball of a time near one of the French windows, all of them sounding pleasantly inebriated. Michelle looked charming in her grey divided skirt and white frilly shirt. Dora’s light-blue jeans looked freshly ironed under her purple kurti. Manu and Richie were in jeans too, but with very different t-shirts. Manu’s was light grey and minimalist, while Richie’s was bright maroon.
Athreya found himself with Major Ganesh Raj and his pretty wife, Jilsy, the latest residents of the vale he had met. Ganesh was talking enthusiastically about his favourite topic, of which Athreya knew little–superheroes. It appeared that comics and graphic novels were the primary reading material the retired major consumed despite his pushing fifty. While he drank only strong dark rum, Jilsy, who looked to be in her early thirties, was clearly enjoying her red wine.
Dressed in a canary-yellow wrap-around that ended at her knees, she was the inevitable centre of attraction. Along with matching heels, an orange scarf and maroon lips, she did make for an attractive sight, and male eyes in the room frequently drifted towards her. Even without the get-up, she was an undeniably attractive lady. As she tried to conceal her ennui at her husband’s incessant monologue about superheroes and their powers, her eyes darted over to people of her own age, lingering especially on Manu.
Both pairs of French windows in the drawing room had been flung wide open so the smokers could step outside for their nicotine shots if they wished to. The mist outside was thicker than it had been the previous evening, and the low-hanging clouds flashed intermittently, lighting the murky night with an aura of diffused luminescence.
The clouds had dumped their burden earlier in the evening, drenching the vale and thickening the all-pervading mist. Even the walkways, which were but a few yards away from the French windows, couldn’t be seen. The world outside was an unmitigated sea of grey. Barely a leaf stirred. It was just the kind of milieu to arouse the crime-fiction aficionado in Bhaskar. He rescued Athreya from Ganesh’s tiresome discourse on superheroes.
‘Is it true that woman murderers prefer poison, while men favour more physical means to kill?’ he asked Athreya loudly. ‘Is it because most women wouldn’t have the strength to wield, say, an axe?’
‘Or a heavy, blunt instrument,’ said Athreya, sauntering in relief towards the men at the centre of the room. ‘While it is very much a matter of strength, the choice of murder weapon depends more on three other factors–the victim, the nature of the motive and the opportunities the victim offers.
‘Pushing someone off a running train or off a railway platform as a train approaches may not require the same strength as throwing the victim off the top of a tall building. Women have been known to do it even in our crowded railway stations and trains. All you need to do is to tip a person over or trip him. A woman pushed another out from a running Mumbai local train just last month.
‘Crimes of passion–love, hate, revenge, infatuation–tend be less planned, and are often opportunistic. Poisoners, on the other hand, are more likely to plan their crimes meticulously. Coming to the victim, it is obviously easier to poison a strong man than to physically assault him, especially if the killer is a woman or a smaller man.’
‘Access to firearms changes that, I suppose?’ Varadan asked.
‘Certainly, especially a silenced one. But here, access to guns is far more limited than it is in the western world, especially among the common public.’
‘And access to poison?’ Jilsy asked. She and her husband too had walked over to the group.
Athreya turned and met her flattering gaze.
‘If you consider the entire spectrum from the crude rat poison that kirana shops sell, to naturally occurring toxins, to more refined substances like cyanide, you have plenty of access. Even potatoes can be poisonous, especially those that are green below the skin or ones that are sprouting.’
‘Wow!’
