Club You to Death Anuja Chauhan (best ebook reader for ubuntu .TXT) 📖

been doing it sadistically, to exert power over them, to watch them squirm and sweat and suffer endlessly?

He was different inside his head too, Father Victor had said. He said watching people spend his entire month’s salary on a bottle of wine on the cruise ships had changed the way his brain was wired. He was nicer in some ways – but he was also darker in some ways. It troubled me.

Bhavani minimizes all the screens and frowns down at his brown knuckles.

Of course, the old gardener could have been lying, he muses. Or exaggerating. For the fancy alcohol, and for all this attention from the glamorous trainer. But in that case, would Leo have ended up dead underneath a loaded barbell? No, it stood to reason that he had been onto something solid.

Love ... and dosti – and equal-equal trust.

Whom would’ve old Guppie Ram enjoyed receiving that from?

Gen. Mehra, the hero of the surgical strikes? Helping him could have made Guppie Ram feel like a crack soldier himself, even as he went about performing his sordid mission! But then, whose body had it been? Who was the ‘evil persons’ who deserved to be eaten up by the earthworms in the composting trench?

Ganga’s husband, of course. A wife-beating villain who totally had it coming. And who had vanished three years ago. Yes, it made sense.

What about the hotties on the ‘hottie-culture’ committee? They too would have been aware that the composting trench was available that night – a highly convenient place in which to bury an inconvenient body …

Roshni Aggarwal? Could her ghastly son have killed somebody in a drugged-out state? He was clearly a mess. Could she be the provider of ‘love … and dosti – and equal-equal trust’. At a pinch, yes.

Bambi Todi’s kleptomaniac mother had been in the US at the time of Leo’s death so she was out of it, but what about Urvashi Khurana? Her beauty and grace could certainly have charmed the old man. But whose body could she have asked Guppie Ram to bury? Who was the ‘evil persons’ in this scenario? Some enemy of her weird husband, perhaps? Or perhaps some ex-lover who was threatening to talk?

Leo had said that this happened three years ago – and Guppie Ram hadn’t contradicted him.

Bhavani gets up and starts to pace up and down his cabin. We will have to pull back and focus on what had been happening at the DTC roughly three years ago, he thinks. But first, we will have to dig up the Shrimati Savitri Mehra Udyaan and see if there really is a corpse layered like biryani beneath the carrots and the radish and the blood-red beets …

‘I feel so bad for her, Kash.’ Kuhu’s voice is drowsy. It’s late in the night and they have been talking for over two hours now. He has done most of the speaking – updating her on what’s been happening in his life since he met his family at the DTC for Tambola Sunday. ‘Your Bambi Todi. I mean, she’s been through so much shit! First her parents made her break up with you, then her Prince Charming died, then her mother was revealed to be severely psychologically damaged! Then her dad turned out to be a real slut, which blows a hole right through the whole marriage-within-our-own-community-only recipe for marital bliss, doesn’t it? Which sucks big-time for her because she’d accepted it as the gospel truth her whole life! And then, when she finally got her shit together, somebody started blackmailing her about her klepto mom! And then he gets murdered! How is she even managing?’

‘That’s the nicest thing about Bambi,’ Kashi responds in an equally sleepy voice. ‘She’s tiny. But she’s tough. She’s got the most amazing coping mechanism of anybody I know.’

‘Walli and Kalra are worried about you.’ Kuhu sounds like she’s turning onto her side. He knows exactly how she would look – the dark curls, the thick, straight black brows, the dips and curves of her firm, strong body. ‘They both messaged me today. Kalra dropped some dark, garbled hints about how while I was so busy building homes for other people, my own home was being destroyed. And Walli entreated me to watch you better. His exact words were “Bannerjee, apne saand ko baandh”.’

Kashi bursts out laughing. ‘Horndogs. Anything to slide into your DMs. They’re both in love with you.’

‘No they’re not!’ she protests immediately. Kuhu always has a hard time believing anybody could be in love with her. ‘They just don’t trust poor Bambi, clearly. Or you.’

You shouldn’t trust me either, I’m not as safe from her as you seem to think.

Aloud, he says. ‘Any other girlfriend would be jealous.’

Kuhu gurgles with laughter. ‘Oh, I am jealous. Of this doughty, crime-fighter cop you’ve described. You sound totally besotted!’

Kashi laughs.

‘I do love the guy!’ he admits. ‘He’s so organic! Just sits there radiating sympathy and nodding and staring at his hands and people spill their guts to him! It’s a masterclass in interrogation!’

‘And you’re going to help him catch a killer? Be the bumbling Hastings to his Poirot?’

Kashi frowns. ‘I think Inspector Padam Kumar is his Hastings.’

She laughs. ‘You’re too smart to be Hastings, huh? Well, you’re certainly having fun on your three weeks off!’

Kashi flips over onto his stomach with a little groan of longing. ‘I was planning to have so much fun, babe, till you stood me up!’

‘Ewww. Don’t be cheap. Did my books come?’

‘They did indeed. They look boring AF.’

‘They’re not,’ she retorts. ‘They’re fascinating. All about how to create natural air-conditioning – with water channels and cross-ventilation and high ceilings. Like the Mughals did. And the ancient Egyptians.’

She holds forth enthusiastically on this topic for a while and he imagines her sitting up now, her razai sliding down to reveal the firm, moulded shoulders, the animated gestures, the clear, passionate eyes.

‘I miss you,’ he says, with sudden, strong fervour. ‘You make everything simple. That’s your nicest thing. You make