A Will to Kill, стр. 61

Athreya’s vivid imagination, which often helped him see beyond the obvious, was hyperactive tonight, showing him glimpses of the phantoms that seemed to be waltzing in others’ minds. Several pairs of eyes turned to him frequently, perhaps taking comfort in his presence. All doors, he knew, would be locked tonight, and the sun would be welcomed in the morning with rare fervour.

As the grandfather clock chimed at the stroke of midnight, the gathering stirred uncomfortably. It was getting late. They had to return to their rooms sooner than later. Athreya took the lead despite not feeling sleepy in the least. This festering morbidity, he knew, should not be allowed to get out of hand.

‘Time to retire,’ he said brightly, smiling with a lightness he did not feel. ‘Need to get my forty winks if I have to get up in time for my morning jog.’

‘Good night, Mr. Athreya,’ Bhaskar said, taking the cue. ‘I’ll retire, too. It’s past midnight.’

‘Me, too.’ Manu broke away from Sebastian and smiled at Athreya. ‘Goodnight, sir.’ He nodded to his father and continued, ‘Sebastian and I will lock up.’

That ended the evening. The four people staying at the annex went out together, and Sebastian locked the French windows after them. Richie, Dora and Michelle drained their glasses and went upstairs as Manu checked the front door. A minute later, Athreya was in his room.

But sleep refused to come. His overactive mind refused to settle down, drawing tenuous links between disparate facts as it strove to stitch them into a patchwork tapestry of sound logic. His practical half, however, reiterated that all the evidence had not yet come in. It would be premature to draw conclusions.

An hour passed as he tossed and turned in bed. Then another. A long while later, he got out of bed and looked at his watch. It was 2:35 a.m. He decided to go to the window and breathe in the damp night air. The mist had thinned somewhat, but it was still murky outside.

As he stood at the window, it occurred to him that this was the room Phillip had been staying in when the mongrel broke in. The bars on the window had not existed then. All the mongrel had to do was to scale the six- or seven-foot wall below the window, and he would have been inside the room. Easy.

Even as the thought occurred to him, he heard a sharp click. Someone had unlatched a door in haste, shooting the bolt back without regard to the sound it produced. The next moment, he heard slippered feet running down the art gallery outside his door. Then came two clicks that he recognized. The person had opened the back door.

Athreya pressed his face against the bars of his window and craned his neck, wondering if he could see the person as he or she emerged from the walkway at the rear of the mansion. But it was pitch-dark. The night intended to keep its secrets.

Sounds, however, carried well in the still night air. The patter of feet he had heard in the art gallery now came from the walkway. They hurried away—heading towards the chapel.

As soon as Athreya realized where they were headed, the hair on his arms stood on end. His senses sharpened and he involuntarily slowed down his breathing so it did not interfere with his hearing. He continued to look leftward through the window towards the chapel.

Less than a minute later, a hazy patch of illumination flared. The lights in the chapel were on, and spilling out into the misty night through the chapel door. Judging by the lack of other sounds and the quickness with which the light had come on, Athreya figured that the chapel door had been opened. The door, which he had locked that evening, was already open.

Fifteen seconds later, although it seemed like five long minutes, an inarticulate cry came from the chapel. It was Sebastian’s voice, and he was furious. He was shouting as loudly as he could, trying to awaken people in the mansion and alert them to some drastic happening.

Moments later, a gunshot sounded. Then another. Athreya stood riveted to the window, his eyes wide open and his ears primed. He had the rare opportunity to witness the drama as it was happening. It was imperative that he continued to watch—others would respond to Sebastian’s call. His eyes focused on the hazy blotch of light at the distance, which was the chapel door.

Even as these thoughts flashed through his mind, he heard sounds from inside the mansion. Manu was opening his door. Feet thudded across the floor of the room above his.

The blotch of light he was looking at dimmed momentarily as a figure appeared in the chapel’s doorway. It kicked at something very close to the threshold, and Athreya saw long legs scissoring as it ran out of the door. It wore darkish trousers and some sort of a jacket.

Just as the figure seemed to have escaped, a hand shot out from inside the chapel and caught it by the jacket. With a jerk, the figure yanked it away and ran, heading down the walkway parallel to the mansion.

Within a few yards of the chapel door, the figure melted away into the night, as the light from the chapel faded. Athreya heard footsteps down the walkway, past his window. But he could see nothing.

Meanwhile, the mansion had erupted in an assortment of sounds. Bhaskar bellowed for Sebastian and Manu. Manu’s door had flown open. Someone was running across the floor above. Michelle and Dora’s high-pitched voices were asking questions that drew no answers. Doors thudded somewhere farther off, probably in the staff quarters.

When he was sure there was nothing more to see, Athreya turned from the windows, pulled on his jacket and hurried out of his room into the lighted corridor. He ran to Bhaskar’s door, knocked perfunctorily and pushed it open.

Bhaskar was sitting up in bed with his automatic in his hand.

‘What happened?’ he demanded.

‘Shots at