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

suddenly wooden one. ‘Ganga, are the police troubling you?’

She walks into the store, and Bhavani notices that she doesn’t look very well today. There are purplish smudges under the huge, beautiful eyes and the make-up seems to have been applied with a shaky hand. The expensive but airily loose salwar kameez is immaculate, but the pale, pearl coloured nail polish on two of her nails is actually chipped. Urvashi Khurana is unravelling fast, decides Bhavani Singh. Why?

‘Hello, Urvashi madam,’ he says politely.

But she is having none of that.

‘You shouldn’t be harassing the girl, ACP!’ she rebukes him. ‘You shouldn’t even be speaking to her without a lady constable present. Surely you’re aware of that?’

Bhavani steps away from the counter, speaking placatingly. ‘Madam, we are not speaking to her about the murders. We are just enquiring about her well-being.’

‘He came to buy apples,’ Ganga tries to explain.

‘You are unbelievably naive,’ Urvashi snaps. Then she turns to Bhavani. ‘Please don’t come in here pretending to buy apples and acting all fatherly! The girl already has a father – who isn’t speaking to her any more, thanks to all these new reports!’

‘But the ACP is nice, Urvashi madam!’ Ganga says earnestly.

‘You thought the general was nice too,’ Urvashi reminds her bluntly. ‘Until you didn’t. Then you and Bambi came crying to me. Now let me help.’

Ganga stands back, subdued.

Bhavani, seeing that Urvashi is on edge today, decides to provoke her while the iron is hot.

‘So good you came, because we wanted to ask you something too, madam,’ he says genially. ‘How did you select the proposed location for your rainwater-harvesting plant? Matlab, why did you want it to be in the kitchen garden only?’

She gives a light, disbelieving laugh. ‘I called in some experts and they chose a spot. There was nothing dodgy about it.’

Bhavani turns the screw a little more. ‘It just seems to be too much of a coincidence, madam.’

‘What?’ Her exquisite nostrils flare a little. ‘Do speak plainly, ACP.’

He moves about a little, half-shrugging, half-wriggling.

‘That you chose the very place where the body was buried. It makes it look like you had some inside information.’

Her lovely eyes kindle.

‘And how would I have that?’ she asks.

Ganga’s head is now turning from one speaker to the other like that of a spectator at a tennis match.

‘Madam, you are right. We shouldn’t be speaking to you without a lady constable present …’

Urvashi’s ante is fully up now. She slaps the counter top. ‘How would I have that, Bhavani ji?’

‘We don’t quite know,’ he replies steadily. ‘But it has worked out very nicely for you, hasn’t it? Your husband and you were the top suspects, till the second corpse was found, after which the needle of suspicion shifted neatly to your rival in the election.’

‘Perhaps my rival is guilty,’ she says forcefully.

‘What’s all this?’

General Mehra has just walked into the Daily Needs too, dressed in checked Bermudas and a firozi-blue cardigan that brings out the hazel of his eyes.

Wah, Bhavani thinks resignedly, kya timing hai! This situation is swiftly descending into pure farce. How we wish we didn’t have a flight to catch!

‘It is nothing,’ he says genially. ‘We were just leaving.’

Mehra points an accusing finger at Urvashi. ‘She was saying something about me! I heard her!’

‘I was saying you’re an unprincipled, lecherous ass,’ Urvashi retorts sweetly. ‘That’s all.’

Ganga gasps, then giggles nervously. Around them, the entire store goes very silent.

‘Excuse me?’ Mehra walks right up to Urvashi, his eyes bulging with disbelief.

‘But you are inexcusable,’ she flashes back coolly; her eyes burning as brightly as coals in her lovely translucent face.

His jaw sags. Foam starts to gather at the corners of his mouth. ‘Whuh … what the hell is this rubbish!’ he roars thickly, looking around the store to see how many people are watching. ‘I will haul you up before the core committee for this!’

‘Oh shut up, Mehra,’ she says contemptuously. ‘I just have to tell them about the stunt you tried to pull with Srivastava and they’ll bar you from the Club, along with your two sons who don’t even talk to you any more!’

A low, cautious whoop sounds from one of the aisles behind them. Mehra’s face purples.

‘Who told y— I deny … I will …’ He takes a hasty step towards her, clenching and unclenching his hands.

Bhavani steps nimbly into the middle. ‘Please, general sa’ab, keep your cool.’

Behra Mehra’s eyes bulge. ‘ACP, I am perfectly capable of keeping my cool! I have commanded operations that require split-second decision-making in the thick of enemy action!’

‘Oh, enough of your stupid little war stories,’ Urvashi says curtly. ‘I have pushed out a baby without any painkillers and without any fuss, while there were rioters at our door and the entire city was burning!’

More whoops sound from the aisles behind them. An unseen female voice starts to chant.

‘Vote for? Urvashi!’

‘Vote for? Urvashi!’

‘Vote for? Urvashi!’

Urvashi bites her lip, flushing, then smiles and bows to her unseen audience.

‘Thank you.’

Thoroughly routed, Behra Mehra turns on his heel and flees the store with as much dignity as he can summon.

The Poddars’ white-pillared bungalow in Alipore is set far back from the main road. The driveway is imposing and the garden beautifully lush – ringed by a high wall and topped off with jagged bits of broken glass.

Bhavani, who is having a very eventful day, smoothens his economy-travel rumpled clothes and regards the imposing gates with a fair amount of trepidation.

The Poddars prefer to keep a low profile, but they are an incredibly wealthy family, almost billionaires, with fingers in over half-a-dozen pies, and connections by marriage to some of the richest families in India. If their son and heir, presumed dead, were alive and running around murdering his ex-fiancée’s paramours, they would have immediately, ruthlessly, suppressed all news of it. Pulling strings in New Delhi’s Crime Branch, and pinning a crime on a mere general would be a piece of cake for their dirty tricks department.

His chief’s word echoes in his ears.

‘For heaven’s sake,