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

several of you in this room. It was a dangerous game he was playing though – and it got even more dangerous when he stumbled upon a huge secret – something far bigger than the petty adultery and embezzlement that were his usual stock in trade. Through his network, he learnt nat about a metaphorical buried body – like Mrs Todi’s kleptomania – but about a real dead body buried in the kitchen garden of the DTC three years ago.

‘But old Guppie Ram was an unreliable source. In fact, he was notorious for taking a kernel of the truth, and spinning a fantastic tale around it. Even then, Leo decided that the kernel was worth taking a cautious shot in the dark at. So he started looking about for people who he thought could be the murderer Guppie Ram had helped that night, three years ago.’

Bhavani pauses, scanning the listening faces keenly. ‘So what all had been happening three years ago?

‘General Mehra was the head of the horticulture committee, ably assisted by Mrs Aggarwal, Mrs Khurana and Mrs Todi. Under their direction a deep composting pit was dug. We can safely assume that when the murderer ended up with a body on his or her hands, their mind went immediately to the freshly dug pit in the kitchen garden, and that is why the phone call was made to old Guppie Ram in the dead of night.

‘There were already rumours floating around the Club about the general’s alleged affair with Ganga, and speculation about the whereabouts of Ajay Kumar. Clearly Leo heard these stories and decided to take a chance, and sent the song to the general.

‘That’s two people who received the song so far. Bambi Todi. And General Mehra. Now let us come to the third recipient of the song – Urvashi Khurana.’

She’s been sitting with her head bowed, but at the mention of her name, she looks up with the quiet dignity of a queen.

‘Yes, let’s.’ She smiles evenly.

Bhavani doesn’t smile back. ‘Although Urvashi madam also received the song, we could find absolutely no event in her life from three years ago that could have resulted with her having a dead body on her hands. Besides, she was the one who ordered the digging up of the kitchen garden in the first place, to lay the rainwater-harvesting plant, so that seemed to indicate that she was unaware of the fact that a body was buried there.’

She sits with her chin raised slightly, her beautiful face in repose, her eyes half-closed. ‘Fascinating. Do continue.’

‘And so perhaps in Urvashi Khurana’s case too, like in that of Bambi ji’s, the “buried body” was a metaphorical one and nat a physical one …

‘But then we learned that Urvashi madam had been very fond of old Guppie Ram too – in fact, she had even attended his funeral! He died of entirely natural causes, by the way; we checked that out quite thoroughly. Was it possible that during one of their cosy chats he told her too, like he did Leo – about the body buried in the kitchen garden? And could Urvashi ji have decided to use this body to confuse the investigating team, derail the investigation, and draw attention away from the recent murder – the murder she may very well have committed – the murder of Leo?’

The colour on Urvashi’s face fluctuates through this speech, but she remains entirely expressionless otherwise.

Bhavani ploughs on. ‘After all, it was Urvashi ji who ordered gas balloons for Tambola Sunday. It was Urvashi ji who had four bunches of them placed in the four corners of the gym – in such a position that, if a bunch was loosened – through a window left open for that very purpose – it would float up and obscure the camera completely for a few vital minutes. On a cold foggy night, no security guard would be in a hurry to leave his warm heater and trudge across the freezing, misty lawns to take down a balloon that may very well drift away itself in a while.

‘Mukesh ji was already working out in the gym; how easy it would have been to offer to pick him up that day. Standing outside the gym, she could have loosened the balloons and waited till they drifted up to cover the camera inside. Then walk in, go to the fridge on the pretext of “getting some water” and slip the Pinko Hathni into Leo’s protein shake, with Mukesh ji none the wiser! Then Mukesh ji would have locked up the gym – as he had promised Thampi – and Urvashi ji would have walked out and driven home with her husband smelling, as the song says, like a rose!

‘Yes, in the case of Urvashi Khurana, the problem was not one of opportunity, but of motive. Why was Leo blackmailing Urvashi ji? What was the “buried body” she was hiding? With her blameless, clean, open-book life, her loving daughters, her flourishing business, her loyal husband to whom she was a devoted wife? What did Leo know about her and how had he found out? We found no evidence whatsoever that Leo had an informant in the Khurana household, nor, in spite of all the rumours put out, we suspect by the General Mehra camp, did she seem to be having an affair with Leo.

‘Fortunately for us, Urvashi ji put us on the right track herself. She was arguing with General Mehra in the Daily Needs the other day, and in reply to his statement that he knew how to keep his cool and make split-second decisions even in the heat of battle, she retorted that she was sick of his war stories, and that she had pushed out a baby without any painkillers and without any fuss while there were rioters at her door, and the entire city was burning!’

A small gasp comes from Urvashi’s throat. She seems to want to speak, then thinks better of it.

‘With your permission, madam, may we