Part 1
"Tring Tring" "Tring Tring"
The shrill ringing of her phone broke the silence of the night. She looked at the caller's ID and smiled in spite of herself. She settled down on the couch carefully; holding onto the baby simultaneously. She had barely held the phone onto her ear that she heard her sister's urgent voice.
"Khushi, where are you, have you left from there?" her sister asked worriedly.
"Jiji, I'm nearly done with feeding Divya her milk and as soon as she is done, I will put her to sleep in her room and come back. Anyway Anjali ji is sleeping and I can't leave Divya here unfed, right?"
"But Khushi you will be late and'."
"Jiji, chill nah, it's still eight and by the way, I will be fine!"She replied in an assuring tone knowing that her sister would be worried for her. Khushi hanged up the call with a slight smile adorning her face. Her sister was so protective of her. Khushi couldn't blame her sister for it as well since her house was a bit far from Anjali ji's house which cost her to the least 45 minutes by car and by the time she would reach home it will already be very late.
Sitting inside and patting Divya to sleep, Khushi realized it has started to rain all of a sudden when she heard beating of the rain on the roof like the crinkling of an aluminum foil. "Probably Jiji guessed, it would rain soon, humph," Khushi thought and she did not forget to send a silent prayer to her God to stop the rain.
***
Sighing for the umpteenth time, Khushi glared at Divya, who did not seem to be in a mood to sleep today. In return, Divya graced her with a toothy grin. Khushi smiled at her this time as she wondered how Anjali ji could neglect this little angel. She knew a little about Anjali's personal life; she was married and her husband died after one year of their marriage, and now Anjali was having an affair with her manager. Her sister was Anjali's financial advisor so she had got the job of taking care of Divya pretty easily.
She was still in a trance when she heard the creaking and squeaking sound of a door upstairs. "Anjali ji must have woken up, I guess," sure that it was Anjali, since no one was there except them, Khushi made her way upstairs with the baby in her arms. She approached the room door of Anjali slowly unaware of the horror that was awaiting her on the other side of the oak paneled door.
She grasped the handle, pulled it down and finally pushed the door open. As soon as she pushed the handle, she felt the 'coppery' smell of blood engulfing her senses. Her mouth fell open; almost rigid seeing the horrible scene in front of her. Her fists clenched with blanched knuckles while her nails dug deeply into the flesh of Divya. In the intense silence, she somehow managed to scream with her whole body. It was the type of scream that made your blood run cold.
The desperate, terrifying scream came again and again and tore through like a sharp piece of glass. Khushi moved towards the source of her horror numbly. Her scream alarmed the neighborhood and soon the high-pitched siren of the police car could be heard.
***
Detective Arnav Singh Raizada made his way into the Malhotra's Mansion, behind him; his best friend and co-detective Aman tagged along. Both walked in; while Arnav observed his surrounding, Aman on the other hand appeared terrified. No matter how many times he had seen corpses, he was still scared of them. He tugged at Arnav's arm making the latter glare at him. He immediately left his arm, and gulping down his fear moved towards the victim.
Arnav looked around and saw a girl sitting around in a corner looking traumatized. She was staring into nothingness. Thinking that he would question her later, Arnav moved towards the bed where the body of Anjali Malhotra lay dead.
The bed sheet, along with the women's night gown were drenched in blood . Blood had drip from the bed to the marble floors. The sight was pretty much disturbing even to the best detective of Mumbai, Arnav. She had been stabbed multiple times and Arnav concluded that either the killer was a psycho or maybe the murderer badly wanted to murder Anjali. He moved closer and saw around the body to see whether the weapon was around.
'No,' he decided! "Smart murderer" he thought, "but whoever you are, you can't be smarter than Arnav Singh Raizada.
Even though he was used to such sights, today particularly, he could feel this women literally begging for justice. He pitied this lady who looked as if she was not given a chance to struggle for her survival. Her face was completely devoid of expression while her eyes were lost in obliteration.
"Arnav," the voice of Aman broke his inspection and he looked at the latter hoping that he had found a clue.
Aman pointed to the crumpled bed sheet at the end of her feet and explained "She got very little time to struggle, here notice her mouth," he pointed towards her mouth, checked Arnav's reaction and seeing him looking at the point he mentioned, he continued "the redness at the corner of her lips means that either she has been slapped or someone has applied constant force at her mouth."
"Rule out the first option, I believe she has been chloroformed. You are right about applying the force part, first hand me my gloves Aman." He wore his crisp white gloves before progressing with his speech. "See the area around her nose and mouth are slightly burnt causing the redness you pointed out and as you know chloroform does have side effects on our skin. This also explain why she wasn't able to struggle much. When she felt the chloroform upon her mouth, she could only move her legs causing the small crumple at her feet."
"You are right, sir" a police inspector butted in the conversation and said "even the girl who was present here said that she heard no shouting sound at all."
"Girl?" Aman questioned.
"Yes sir, the girl out there," the inspector finished by pointing his hand towards Khushi.
"I'll talk to her, Arnav"
"No, you see around if you can find something else, I will talk to her"
Aman nodded and patrolled around.
Arnav moved towards khushi. Since she was sitting down, he had to bend down to reach her level. She had held upon her knees and was rocking herself back and forth. The fear in her eyes made him gulp down his saliva.
"What's your name?"
No reply.
He touched her shoulder softly and repeated himself again, "What's your name?" This time he was rewarded since she moved his face and her eyes locked with his. Arnav didn't know why but he felt the immediate need to re-assure her. "Listen, you are safe and'."
His words were left hanging in the air as she broke into vulnerable sobs. He could only pat her head at that moment. He was not used to deal with emotional situations so when he was in one, he failed miserably.
"Listen you are fine, just tell me what happened?" Arnav asked.
" I..I'.was'..feee'ddingh'..Divy'a" and she continued on stammering.
From what Arnav could gather, Khushi was a babysitter who was taking care of the victim's child. She heard a noise upstairs and when she came up she saw the body of Anjali lying there with blood. On seeing her lying like that, she shouted and went towards Anjali. She patted her cheeks trying to find whether or not she was still alive. Apparently, she was already dead by that time.
"Wait, you said that she had a baby right, where is she then?"
"Downstairs with OP ji"
"Who is OP?"
"One of the servants"
"Okay"
Didn't she just said that she was alone, so then how come the servant was here now?
Arnav was just about to proceed with his investigation when he heard a mobile phone ringing. He saw khushi stretching her body, trying to remove her mobile phone from her jeans pocket. She fiddled with her phone and tried to compose her herself before answering.
"Jiji"
"Khushi'what's wrong'your voice"
"Jiji'.Anjali..jii'"
"Anjali...?"
"Jiji, Anjali ji has been murdered!"
"What? How''.Where are you khushi?"
"I'm still at her mansion, the inspectors forbid me to leave!"
"Khushi, you stay there, I am coming right now!"
"Ok'Jiji"
She cut the call and Arnav signaled another inspector to escort her downstairs, however she was not supposed to leave yet. The inspector firmly obeyed Arnav's words while the latter joined Aman for the investigation. By now, the rain had long stopped so Arnav could check the balcony with Aman. After around twenty minutes, Arnav and Aman descended down to question the servant when they saw a girl in her mid-twenties coming inside the house. Dressed in simple outfits, her long wet hair flowing behind her, she ran inside and hugged Khushi.
"Inspector, seal the area and send the victim for autopsy." Arnav barked authoritatively.
"Sure sir" the inspector answered and went upstairs.
"Miss Khushi, since you were present here when the murder happened, you are not allowed to leave Delhi until this case is closed, did you understand?"
Khushi merely nodded.
"Good"
Arnav moved towards the two people sitting on the couch with the baby. "So, you are Mr. Om Prakash?"
OP nodded and Arnav continued;
"And this is'?" he asked pointing to the lady who had the baby cuddled up in her arms.
"She is my wife!"
Before Arnav could continue with his interrogation, he heard Payal addressing OP.
"But you do not work on Monday's, right?"
"Actually, I forgot my'"
"Excuses'Excuses'but these don't work with us, Mr. Om Prakash, so you better tell the truth and not waste our time anymore" requested an exasperated Aman.
"Actually," OP stood up and made his way towards the two men before continuing "Me and my wife, we both work for Anjali Mam, and on Monday we usually have no work, but today morning we abruptly received a text from Anjali Mam and she asked us to come to meet her at night. She told us to reach here by eight at night. It did seem a bit weird to call us at such a time, but then we couldn't forsake our job and dare to question her" OP finished and wiped the beads of sweat on his temple.
"She texted you, you said" Arnav cross-interrogated.
"Yes" came the compliant reply.
"Hand over the phone"
OP submissively handed over the phone to an eager Aman who looked ready to rummage through the gadget to find any sort of evidence.
"Mr. and Mrs. OP, until this case is over, you are not allowed to move out of Delhi, and your phone will remain with us."
OP and his wife could merely nod.
"And now all of you, you are all linked to this murder in a way or the other and this mean that I may require to interrogate you at any time, I repeat AT ANY TIME" Arnav looked around to find if anyone was thinking of disobeying him. Satisfied with the scared look they had on their face Arnav continued "You may all leave now!"
All of them rushed towards the door, panic clearly written on their face. As if the shock of Anjali's murder was not enough, Arnav's intimidating personality scared them more.
***
Arnav started his car, his thoughts still on the case.
"So, what do you think dude," Aman questioned.
"About what?" asked a confused Arnav.
"About the case Arnav, suspecting anyone"
"There are many suspects and I better not make any judgment now."
"That's right!"
"Aman, you have get me the whole biography of the victim, I want to know every minute detail about her and that should be done by tomorrow."
"Yes boss."
"Aman..."
"That girl'uhhh what's her name'uhhh yeah, Khushi, what do you think of her?"
"Well, she is beautiful, her eyes are'." Aman would have continued ranting about Khushi's beauty if Arnav did not stop him with his signature line-'what the!'
"I didn't ask you to tell me how she looks, okay, I wanted to know whether you think if she can be involved in the murder since she was the first person to see the corpse."
"I don't think so, Arnav she looked traumatized the whole time..."
"Appearance can be deceiving"
Aman merely shrugged at his response.
"But one thing's for sure" Arnav added.
"What?"
"Her eyes can kill" Arnav finished with his famous smirk, while he looked beside to gauge Aman's incredulous expression which soon turned into a sly one.
To be continued...😆
This OS is specially dedicated to sister-BerryBlush07 who is celebrating her Bday tomorrow!😳(Sorry for lying abt the presentation stuff😉)
Here's the link of her Bday thread, plz do wish her-https://www.indiaforums.com/forum/iss-pyaar-ko-kya-naam-doon/3684121/happy-birthday-ayesha
This will have 3 more parts and if u liked it do leave ur feedbacks😳
Please excuse me if i made a mistake in this since im not used to this genre😕
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