Club You to Death by Anuja Chauhan (books to improve english .TXT) 📕

He turns to look at Bhavani then, his gaze meeting the older man’s steadily. ‘Bambi called me a bunch of times. But my friends wouldn’t let me take her calls – they even took away my phone. We were all drunk, of course. So, after they dropped me home, I drove back to the Club to see what she wanted. I parked the car and rang the bell of Guest Cottage No. 1. When nobody answered, I left.’

Then he looks directly in the ACP’s eyes. ‘But I did not murder anybody.’

Bambi gasps raggedly and whirls to face the policeman.

‘Well, of course he didn’t! It wasn’t Kashi! I tell you it wasn’t him! You talked about my female instinct earlier – they say he would never do anything like that! He’s too nice … too decent … too clean!’

Bhavani regards her calmly. ‘Then who else could it be, Bambi ji?’

‘Oh!’ She pushes her hair back from her forehead, breathing hard. Her eyes travel around the room, flying from face to face. Then they light up. ‘Arya! It must have been Arya – it has to be Arya – he said just now that he spent the night snorting cocaine in the garden and hating on Anshul! He said so! Cookie auntie has a video of him on the spot, for fuck’s sake! He must have seen Anshul coming out from my cottage, got maddened with jealousy and attacked him! Yes, that makes perfect sense – you’re so smart, Bhavani ji, why haven’t you thought of that? Why aren’t you arresting Arya?’ Her young voice grows unthinkingly cruel. ‘He’s a waste of space, anyway! You should be arresting Arya!’

Bhavani Singh ignores her and steps forward. ‘We have a warrant here for your arrest, vakeel sa’ab. Please come into the next room with us so we can record your statement.’

‘What a shit show.’ Kashi gives an incredulous little laugh, but he gets to his feet readily enough. ‘I thought you were an intelligent man, ACP. Clearly, I was wrong.’

Bhavani smiles blandly. ‘Handcuffs, PK.’

The cherubic inspector looms forward, clinking slightly. Light glints wickedly on the metal links of the cuffs as he hands them to his superior.

Bhavani steps closer to Kashi, with his back to the now sobbing Bambi. He looks calmly into Kashi’s bewildered, furious eyes and then, very deliberately, winks at him.

For one uncomprehending moment Kashi thinks he has imagined it. Then understanding floods his eyes.

‘No!’ he whispers, stricken.

Bhavani nods back gravely.

Yes.

And in that moment Kashi perceives everything. What the ACP’s game plan is, and what is expected of him. A soul-searing sadness sweeps over him – a wave of sorrow so strong that he almost staggers. But strangely, he feels no surprise at all.

Yes, this is where it was headed all along. This is how the story ends.

He holds out his hands.

‘I confess,’ he says lightly. ‘I did it.’

Bhavani places the manacles around his wrists.

‘No!!!’

The scream that emerges from behind them is both shrill and guttural. An animal scream, rising from a deep, secret darkness into the light. Heart-rending, blood-curdling and exquisitely violent.

‘I didn’t mean for this to happen! This wasn’t in the plan at all! Kashi didn’t do it! He didn’t do anything! It was all me, all me! I killed Anshul, I phoned Guppie Ram ji, Guppie Ram ji came to help me and somehow Leo wormed it out of him, the slimy bastard, so I had to kill him too!’

Sobbing incoherently, Bambi Todi crumples into a childlike heap onto the ground.

17

Icky Slime

Kash, d’you remember the night you passed out from NLS? You came to my place straight from the airport so proud and happy and I made you unpack your graduation robe and wear it, and then we made love on the carpet while ‘Whole New World’ from Aladdin played on my red speaker, and you joked about the double meanings of ‘magic carpet ride’? Well, once you sneaked out of my bedroom that night, Mammu came in and said well, I hope you enjoyed that.

I said, wait, did you know Kashi was here?

And she said, oh yes, I knew, I always know when he’s here, and what-all you’re up to, but you must understand that you’re older now. Just like childhood ended, and school ended, and college ended, your childish ‘best-friendship’ with that boy also has to come to an end.

She said everybody should marry people who are from the same faith, social standing and community as themselves because if they don’t, there would be too many differences in background, and no matter how much you love each other, these differences would eventually drive you apart.

She was SO sure and SO chill about it! And Paapu and she did seem to have the dream marriage, built on all this ‘logic’ of hers. It rattled the fuck out of me.

They then produced Anshul out of a hat, literally. ‘A prince for my princess’ was what Paapu called him, very triumphantly, before we went on our first date. He was handsome, charming, thoughtful, witty, amazingly strong and, of course, crazy wealthy. TBH, what I dug most was that all the Maaru girls were panting after him – it’s so fun to screw with them – so I couldn’t resist making him fall for me. It was easy enough to pretend I would love to sleep in a tent and bathe in melted glacier water (As if! I’m not like your perfect little GF who I hear has turned into an actual villager, and is probably harvesting paddy as I write this) – but I swore I was up for all sorts of outdoorsy ghar-ghar games and he was hooked.

It broke my heart into a million bits to end things with you, but I swear that at that time I really thought I was adulting properly and doing the correct, mature thing. I REALLY did.

I visited him at his flat a few times, where I met his domestic help –