“What do you mean?”
Sonia leaned forward and took her friend's hand. “You wanted justice, didn't you? So do it. Give the unsung Geeta her due. Find her, give her publicity, and if possible use her as your personal dance instructor. Who knows, with your support, she may bounce back to energy. And your actions may give a new lease of life to her!”
Nimisha stared at Sonia. “Sonia, you're a gem, you know that?”
“All I know is that there's someone up there who is constantly watching us. Call it a Super Power or call him God, but he has his own singular way of seeing justice done. Perhaps he has chosen you as his means. Perhaps that's why you are still here, hale and hearty—for that reason?”
Nimisha nodded, her eyes filmed over with tears. “I'll see you later,” she said huskily, and left the room.
Sonia was silent for a moment, then she glanced at the others. Chirag sat staring at the carpeted floor, deep in thought. Jay rose.
“Does this mean that we are free to leave now?” he asked.
“I think that's up to Sub-Inspector Pawar. He may have some formalities to wind up,” Sonia replied.
Chirag straightened and took Sonia's hand in a warm clasp. “Thank you. You have done us all a great favor. I can't tell you how glad I am that I hired you! Will you please send your bill to my office? This is my card.” He removed a plastic visiting card from his wallet.
“I will. Will you be leaving immediately?”
“My production manager has returned from Mumbai this morning and as soon as we settle our accounts, we shall leave. Thanks again.”
“You're welcome.” Sonia was formal. She watched the two men quit the cottage—the actor with a happy bounce in his step and the Director looking immensely weary.
Jatin smiled at her. “Boss, there's so much to learn from you!” he remarked.
Sonia turned to him and the sparkle in her eyes took him by surprise. “Oh yeah?” she asked.
The evening light was fading as Chirag headed towards his cottage. It had taken all day to settle the accounts and his production manager had left only moments ago. Jay and Nimisha had departed from the hotel. But he'd hung on, feeling loath to leave the hill station. He had dealt with the money matters with an uncharacteristic impatience, longing to retreat into his world. He felt upset and angry as he opened the cottage door. Without bothering to switch on the lights, he strode straight to his half-packed suitcase. Riffling intolerantly through the clothes, he extracted a photograph. Then slumped on the bed, sudden tears coursing down his cheeks, he buried his head in his hands.
“I'm sorry, I'm sorry,” he muttered. “But it was the only way!”
The streetlight fell on the bed, and on the smiling face of the photo. Intensity raged through his body. “Why did you leave me? Why didn't you contact me? All this hurt and pain and anger! How did you expect me to cope? And look what's happened now! I had to save her! I had no choice. I had to save
her,
you have to understand!”
“I think she will understand,” a quiet voice spoke, and Chirag almost jumped off the bed in shock.
“Sonia!” He rose unsteadily, as if drunk.
Sonia emerged from the dark corner of the cottage. Her face was grave, but a sympathetic gleam shone in her eyes.
“If it hadn't been for you, Nimisha would've been dead by now. You switched the baskets, didn't you?” Sonia asked softly.
“Yes, I did! I hated Kusum! She had taken my love away from me! My talented, beautiful Geeta—hidden in some dark village, away from the world, by her sister! A sister who used Geeta's illness as an excuse for her own selfish gains! I saw Geeta the day Nimisha and I were returning from the shoot, and I couldn't believe my eyes. I hadn't even known that she was Kusum's sister. I overheard everything from the garden window and I felt as if my heart would burst. What agony to discover her after all those years—her soul and body shrunk with time. My immediate instinct was to go up to her and take her in my arms. But then I stopped myself. I realized that love was no more enough. The years had created a huge valley between us. I had to cross that valley carefully and handle her with tender care; get to the bottom of the matter and return to her with answers—solutions that would set her free from her past. I said nothing to Nimisha. But I felt helpless. I knew I ought to do something, but what? I was simply looking for an opportunity to mend matters somehow—
anyhow
!
“These last few days, I'd overheard Nimisha confronting Kusum about Geeta, and was grateful that Geeta had a champion. I thought it was wonderful of Nimisha to take up for the poor girl. Last night, while the rest of you were at the party, I was lurking around Kusum's window just to keep an eye on her and saw her injecting poison into the berries. When she asked Nana to deliver that particular basket to Nimisha, I was stunned. I acted on impulse—without bothering to pause and think. Only one thought clamored in my head—that I had to prevent Nimisha from eating those berries. From my cell phone, I called up the manager's office. When both Kusum and Nimisha left their rooms to attend the call, I quickly climbed through the windows and switched the baskets.”
He fell silent, hugging the photo to his chest. Sonia stepped forward, took his hand, and nudged him gently into a chair. She drew another chair and sat down beside him.
“Chirag, you could've simply taken the basket and gone to the police,” she pointed out softly.
“It didn't even occur to me!” Chirag shook his head. “And even if it had, I wouldn't have wanted to. She didn't deserve to live after all that she'd done. The last straw was trying to kill Nimisha, who was doing her best for my Geeta! That really got me! I'm glad that she's dead! My only concern now is Geeta.”
“Don't worry about her, Nimisha's going to take good care of her,” Sonia assured. Her voice was calm and controlled. “Listen, Chirag, listen carefully to what I have to say. You did what you had to do. Right or wrong is really very debatable. But now there's only one course of action left for you. You must square up to the situation and take responsibility. You must confess. If you own up to the switching of baskets, a good lawyer will get you off with a light sentence. After all, you did it to save Nimisha. She owes you her life and she will say so in court!” Sonia searched his face for a reaction—either acquiescence or refusal. But there was nothing.
“And,” she added on a gentle note, “after you serve your sentence, you can rebuild your life with Geeta.”
Chirag's blank stare dissolved into myriad emotions flitting across his face. Glancing back at the photograph in his hand, he remarked, “There's no other way, is there?”
“Unfortunately no. However in the present circumstances, this is good enough, believe me.” Sonia squeezed his hand.
“But what if she doesn't want me? What if she hates me—what if Geeta hates me for what I did?”
“She won't,” Sonia replied confidently.
“How can you be so sure? It's been years since I saw her, what if she despises me?” Chirag groaned.
A hand rested on his shoulder and a soft voice spoke. “Every second of those long years has been filled with memories of you!”
Chirag looked up wildly. “Geeta!”
The frail, weak woman smiled wearily at him, but her eyes were overflowing with love. Chirag enveloped her in strong embracing arms and they clung to each other, the dam of tears bursting and sweeping away years of accumulated, stagnant sorrows.
Sonia quietly and discreetly slipped out the door, into the cool night. Sub-Inspector Pawar, Nimisha, and Jatin, who were standing outside the cottage, flashed her eager, questioning looks. Sonia brushed a hand over her moist eyes and sighed contentedly.
“You were right, Nimisha. Facts can be far more fascinating than fiction and real-life romance more romantic than in films!”
The van headed out of Panchgani, winding down the idyllic mountain road. The pink light of dawn stained the horizon, the tender golden rays slowly enfolding the entire world in their beauty and warmth.
Jatin yawned, but Sonia appeared fresh and energetic. She hummed a song as they left Panchgani behind them.
“But, Boss—” Jatin began.
“I know what you want to ask me,” Sonia interrupted. “But try to figure it out for yourself.”
“I can't. At least not this early in the day. Tell me: Could Nana read or not?”
Sonia smiled. “Yes, he could read.”
She maneuvered the van skillfully down the twisting road. “You know what first set me on to Kusum, apart from her horoscope? The basket cards. If someone had indeed murdered Kusum, why would Nimisha's basket have Kusum's name on it and Kusum's basket Nimisha's name? Which meant that at some point something had gone wrong. And when was that point? I worked my way backwards in logic. Taking Kusum's dying words,
‘He can't read,'
as a base, my first step backwards was Nana and his delivery. Kusum's belief that he couldn't read meant that the baskets had indeed been wrongly delivered. And who would know this best? Obviously the person who was aware of the existence of poison in the berries. If Kusum, who had eaten poisoned berries, noticed the muddle, then she also had to be aware of the cyanide in them. Which meant, in turn, that not only did she know
how
the cyanide got into the berries, but also
who
had put it in there! Had it been someone else, she would've tried to drag that person's name in. But she didn't, because she, herself, was her own victim!”
“But you're saying that Nana
could
read,” Jatin pointed out.
“Yes, but
Kusum
didn't know that! She'd no idea that Chirag had switched the baskets. She assumed in the last few moments of her life that Nana had made a mess of the names. In fact, that was what really gave me the next lead. If Nana could read and had assured that he had delivered the right baskets, why did the cards belie the fact? In short, if the baskets were not muddled up because of Nana, as Kusum thought,
then how had they been exchanged
?”
“But what made you suspect Chirag?”
“I didn't suspect him immediately. My first thought was that if someone had deliberately set out to murder Kusum, he would've at least taken the precaution of removing the telltale cards. That proved that this was a hasty, unpremeditated job. Then I remembered seeing Chirag coming from behind the cottages when the horoscope-reading session was on. He was the last to arrive and had plenty of opportunity to create mischief. But why would he want to kill Kusum? The motive eluded me.
“At the same time, I hit upon Chirag's horoscope. Venus, Mars, Uranus, and the Moon in the ascendant Scorpio indicated a talented man, with dramatic highs and lows in his love life. But Mercury was trapped between the Sun, Saturn, Mars, and Rahu, which clearly showed that he could be propelled towards some dangerous mistakes, even committing murder. It set me thinking. Did his love have anything to do with Kusum's murder? And then suddenly I recalled that he was with Nimisha in the village the day their car broke down, the day she met Geeta. Could Geeta be Chirag's lost love? Seemed far-fetched but it definitely provided a motive for him to kill Kusum. After all, if Geeta was his love, he could've been incensed to realize that Kusum had achieved success at Geeta's cost.
“The idea took firm hold and I simply couldn't shrug it off my mind. There had to be a connection between Kusum and Chirag. And the link could be Geeta. Chirag's love vanishing and Kusum's sister living in oblivion, no one even aware of her existence—the more I thought of it, the more likely it seemed. Also Nimisha had praised Geeta's Choreography book and how detailed her storyboarding was. Only somebody who had deep knowledge of film grammar—who had studied film—would be capable of such refined thoroughness. I also remembered that Chirag and his girlfriend were at the film institute. Somehow the connection seemed to fit. But I didn't know for sure. I knew that I had to be certain before I publicized my theories. When we both departed to fetch the basket cards from the cottages, I deliberately went to Chirag's cottage. His suitcase was open on the bed and I quickly riffled through its contents. It was sheer luck that I found the set of kerchiefs tucked in his bag. All the well-worn cotton kerchiefs had a beautifully embroidered message on them—‘To my darling Chirag, from G'! It confirmed all my suspicions that Kusum's sister was Chirag's long-lost love.
“But I still had to validate my theory with definite proof. I had to somehow get Chirag to confess his involvement in this whole affair. So I pressed ahead with my specious logic of how Kusum got trapped in a web of her own making, which was mostly true. Knowing fully well that Nana was not responsible for the basket switch, Chirag was puzzled and confused. Unquestionably he was not a thoroughbred killer and I took advantage of his vulnerable state of mind. I waited for Chirag to relax and expose his feelings in the privacy of his cottage, then tried to persuade him to come clean. Fortunately, not being a seasoned murderer and acting solely at the spur of the moment, he was more manageable than I thought he would be. I'm glad he confessed.”
“It was a good idea to ask Nimisha to bring Geeta here,” Jatin acknowledged.
Sonia nodded. “I thought it would be wonderful if Chirag could meet her again—it would change his perspective on the whole issue. Somehow it was important that she be present to boost his morale and help him regain the straight path again.”
“But, Boss, why go to so much trouble? Why not just hand him over to the police?”