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“Begin, Miss Tasha,” ordered the Inspector.
I took a deep breath and started talking. I told him everything that had happened beginning with the bloody chicken.
“But why did you suspect the deceased?”
I told him what the housekeeping staff, Malti, had said about Vishal.
“It was just a guess, Inspector. We had no proof against him.”
“And on whose authority did your fiancé try to question him?”
“Myex-fiancédid nothing of the sort,” I snapped.
DV put a hand on my knee, signalling me to stay calm.
“Inspector Saheb, it was the owner of the commune, Freddy Suratwala, who wanted to find the deceased. He had the authority to question his employee about such a disgraceful prank that he might have committed. And he had every right to employ a private security agency to make such enquiries as he required,” he replied, far too calmly in my opinion.
Inspector Sawant shot him a sarcastic smile.
“So, you’re trying to tell me you were here in an official capacity?”
“Not at first. We came to the commune to meet Princess Tasha. As her friends. Since we were already on the premises when the prank happened, he hired us to deal with the issue discreetly, without causing any further inconvenience to the other guests.”
How on earth was he going to prove that, I wondered.
“What proof do you have that you weren’t acting in your private capacity?”
I fidgeted in place and DV’s fingers tightened on my knee imperceptibly.
“My company can provide you with a copy of the invoice for the job,” he replied.
Inspector Sawant grunted and turned a page in his file.
“Go on. What happened after that?”
I narrated the events of the next day only as far as I had experienced them. I did not tell him anything I hadn’t directly seen or heard, because I didn’t want him twisting my words to our disadvantage.
“The PM report fixes the time of Vishal Agarwal’s death as somewhere between two and five in the morning. Where were you at during that period, Miss Tasha?”
The death must have taken place soon after I left DV’s house. After I changed my mind about making love to him.
I shifted in my seat and met the Inspector’s eyes squarely.
“I was here, in my cottage,” I replied.
“Can anyone vouch for that?” he asked, and I bit my lip.
The truth was that I had no alibi for the hours between when I walked out on DV and when I met Sandhya in the morning for breakfast. I opened my mouth to say as much, but under the table, DV’s hand tightened like a vice over my knee.
“I can, Inspector. You see…” he shot me a sideways glance. “We spent the night together.”
I stared at him open-mouthed. That was a blatant lie. And lying to the cops could get him into a world of trouble.
“Are you crazy? Why would you say that?” I squeaked.
But as the words flew from my mouth, I could have bitten my tongue off when I realised that if I didn’t have an alibi for the rest of the night, neither did DV. And he was giving himself an alibi as much as he was giving me one.
The Inspector turned to me with a smirk.
