Deal Unto Death - part I

He thrust her more to himself and explored deep into her hazel eyes. Her pupils dilated and were flooded with love while her lips curved in anticipation. The hot breath from him tingled her soft skin as she gently twisted in his arms greatly increasing his heartbeat and pushing him to do something more. His hands gently moved over her body while……………

Tring tring!!!!

Ravi was startled by the noise of the intercom that rudely tore in to the silence of the detective agency that stood on the quiet corners of koramangala. He banged the romantic novel that he was reading on the table with unhidden annoyance and picked up the receiver.

“Yes Madam” his voice was humbler than a Japanese bow without any traces of the irritation demonstrated by his hands ,couple of moments back.

“Ravi ,come in. I need to talk to you” a clear and concise voice beckoned him in, followed by which the line was disconnected.

Ravi replaced the receiver and casually trotted towards his boss’ room with a reasonable mixture of professionalism added in. He turned the knob of the door and after carefully making sure that his boss would have heard him coming, gradually pushed the door away from him

“Come in Ravi” the lucid voice instructed as she continued to peer into the computer screen after a focused glance at the door.

Meena Kumari was in her early thirties and was a picture of confidence. Her age had never been guessed right as she had grown fair bit of white hair and she never made any effort to look young. She was born in a conservative family as a second child to a chauvinistic village land lord. Her enthusiasm and free will never found her any fans in her family as she was regularly put in place by the high handed and loud methods of her dad. Her elder sister and mom could do little more than being mute spectators. After finishing her higher secondary she was asked to stop her studies in spite of her top grades and repeated pleadings. Soon after that she was married to a clerk in the civil services from city. Her married life was insignificant and normal and very little was expected out of her except taking care of household chores and being a obedient wife for her husband. After repeated quarrels with her husband she won the permission to study and completed her graduation through correspondence. Then she started studying masters in criminology inspired by the loads of crime novels she used to read, to while away the time. She even got in to a part time job as an office assistant in one of the detective agencies. Sadly the success in her professional life didn’t reflect in her personal life as her husband was never able to appreciate her academic pursuits. Moreover he wasn’t too happy about the fact that they never had children in spite of being married for years. That’s when she suspected that her husband was having an affair with another woman.



Day by day her suspicion grew bigger until one day she set out to find out for herself. The spying techniques which she had gathered over the years helped as she caught her husband red handed. She promptly filed for divorce after a brief unsuccessful mediation attempt taken up by her parents . Her dad immediately disowned her for her “unbalanced” and “thoughtless” decision but she never had any regrets. She got the divorce after a bit of courtroom drama ,speedened up by the fact that she didn’t stress too much on the settlement amount. She got a promotion in her detective agency as a detective agency as she was able to impress on her boss with her proven detective skills.

Gradually she was settling down in her single life emboldened by the masters degree in criminology. Her progress in the agency was pretty impressive as her commitment and intelligence complimented by the attitude and courage led quick and amazing results in hopeless cases. Ravi joined the agency as her assistant in the wee end of her career with the agency before she knew the time had come for her to start her own establishment. Thus started “Meena detective agency”, which had gained a decent name for itself in the 4 years since it had started.

“Sit down Ravi” she said and leaned back in her chair as she removed her spectacle.

“We have got a case Ravi”,she continued after Ravi was comfortably placed in his seat.

“Wow! That’s cool!! Whats the crime??” he leaned in front rubbing his hands in excitement.

“Apparently a suicide,but our client does not think so. Even if it aint a murder we got to figure what was the motive” she took the copy of the file about the case and handed it over to him.

“Who is the victim” he asked as he took the file and started opening it.

“Victim’s name is Vilas Achrekar.Some IT guy. Originally from Mumbai and working in one of the companies here”

“He hung himself”he queried as he was looking at some photographs.

“Apparently!! He was found hanging in the hall of the three bed room apartment which he shared with five other room mates. As luck would have it none of them were in the house on that day. Two of them had gone to their hometown for the weekend,three others had gone outside for a movie and subsequent window shopping and had come back only late night.”

“Hmmm!!” he grunted as he was turning the pages and asked ”when did this happen??”

“The autopsy says that he died around 6 in the evening.”

“Did anyone see anyone/anything fishy?” he added.

“Well!! If am gonna give you all the answers there is no God damn reason why I should hire you” she remarked as she leant back with a smile.

“Ha ha..” he chuckled and got up with a spring “I will see what I can do”

“I would like to see you solve the case” she remarked with a matter-of-fact tone.

“Wish me luck” he smiled as he got up from his seat and walked out of the room.

“All the best! I know you can do it” she wished him as she watched him go out of the room before putting on her spectacles and turning to the monitor.



As Ravi came to his seat he wondered who could be the client who had contacted them to investigate the case. But knowing that Meena would have told him if she found it necessary to do so, he let that pass. The next few hours he was busy reading through the file, assimilating all possible information that he can gather from the file. Once he was done he couldn’t wait to get started. He noted down the address of the crime scene.

To be continued………………..

· Deal Unto Death – Part II