‘Offer?’ The stupid look remained on the mongrel’s face. ‘What offer?’
‘I want you to tell me your full story.’
‘Why?’
A shrewd look came to the mongrel’s face. He was getting back to his old self.
‘Because there are multiple crimes here. It’s not just the murder of Phillip. I want to expose all of them, and one way to do that is to use your testimony.’
‘What’s in it for me?’
‘For one, if you become the state’s witness, your sentence will be much lighter. Second, the murder charge that is hanging over your head will disappear. Third, Mr Fernandez could consider dropping charges against you. I don’t know if he will, but it is a possibility.’
‘And if I don’t?’
‘I walk out of here. I will leave you to your fate and at Muthu’s mercy.’
‘You will let an innocent man rot in jail for the rest of his life?’ the mongrel demanded.
‘Innocent?’ Athreya asked, raising his eyebrows theatrically. ‘Show me one innocent man in this room other than me.’
‘You said there were multiple crimes here other than Phillip’s murder. What crimes?’
‘I’m not going to tell you. You confess completely, and answer all my questions truthfully. Only then does my offer stand. If you play games with me, you will end up in the gutter.’
‘How do I know that you will keep your word? How do I know that you will not cheat me after I confess?’
‘You don’t,’ Athreya said evenly. ‘But you have no choice but to trust me.’
‘Give me five minutes,’ the mongrel muttered and turned away.
Athreya rose and went out of the cell. He asked a sub-inspector to prepare to record the mongrel’s confession. When he returned to the cell ten minutes later, the mongrel was ready.
‘I’m going to trust you,’ he said. ‘I will tell you everything. You must keep your end of the bargain.’
‘My end of the bargain is this: If you confess and turn state witness, I will make Inspector Muthu drop the murder charges, and ask the prosecutor to recommend a lighter sentence for you. Whether Mr Fernandez chooses to drop his charges of attempted assault is up to him.’
The mongrel nodded slowly and began his story.
‘I followed Murthy on Friday night to Greybrooke Manor, just as you said. Ismail had not told me who had commissioned the contract, but it hadn’t taken me long to find out. I already knew that it must be Abbas or Murthy. But Murthy had no money, and he was in no position to put out a contract. So it had to be Abbas.
‘But why was Abbas doing it? What did he stand to gain by having Fernandez killed? All it took was some snooping and eavesdropping. I found out that Abbas had struck a deal with Murthy. The property that would come to Michelle after Fernandez’s death would be merged with Abbas’s resort.’
‘Did Michelle know about the contract?’ Athreya asked.
‘No. She was kept in the dark. Murthy had beaten and slapped her into submission. He had made her sign an agreement with Abbas, promising to merge her inherited property with Abbas’s resort.
‘As I said, I followed Murthy to Greybrooke on Friday night. The fog was so thick that I could easily remain concealed, and my ability to move without making noise allowed me to get close to people. It was just as you said–I walked around and overheard conversations. Dora and Manu, Michelle and Abbas, Michelle pestering the lawyer about the contents of the second will. And the very interesting conversation between Abbas and Murthy, in which they talked openly about Fernandez’s imminent death.
‘By about 1 a.m., most people had returned to their rooms. Only Abbas and Murthy remained, but they were sitting at the rock garden and smoking. I moved towards the mansion.
‘The first thing I did was to lock the door to the staff quarters. I didn’t want any of them coming out and getting in my way. I was planning to enter through the back door, as that was the shortest way to Fernandez’s room.
‘But before I could go in, I heard someone come down the walkway. He must have come out of the front door, and was going towards the chapel. I ran to the trees behind the mansion and hid there, watching. As I watched him enter the chapel, I recognized him. You know who it was?’
Athreya nodded. ‘Richie.’
‘Yes … Richie. I crept up close to the chapel, wondering what Richie was doing there in the middle of the night. I had just walked around to the building, when I saw someone in a gown come down the path from Sunset Deck.
‘I stood flat against the chapel wall and watched. To my surprise, it was a woman in a nightgown–the major’s wife. She passed within ten feet of me, and entered the chapel through a window. I needed no imagination to know what was going on.
‘With two people inside the chapel, it would be risky for me to attempt my work. I decided to wait. Just then, I saw yet another person, again dressed in a gown. I was too far away to make out who it was, and even to make out whether it was a man or a woman.
‘This person was about to enter through the chapel door when muted sounds came from inside. The woman’s giggling carried far in the night air. This person stopped and went to the trees behind the mansion and stood there, waiting for Richie and the woman to finish and leave. I could no longer see the person.
‘We must have waited for half an hour or forty-five minutes. At last, the woman left the way she had come, and Richie slipped out through the door and returned to the mansion. The person then waited for five more minutes before entering the chapel.
‘A minute later, I
