A Will to Kill, стр. 66

‘As I said, I followed Murthy to Greybrooke on Friday night. The fog was so thick that I could easily remain concealed, and my ability to move without making noise allowed me to get close to people. It was just as you said, I walked around and overheard conversations. Dora and Manu, Michelle and Abbas, Michelle pestering the lawyer about the contents of the second will. And the very interesting conversation between Abbas and Murthy, in which they talked openly about Fernandez’s imminent death.

‘By about 1 a.m., most people had returned to their rooms. Only Abbas and Murthy remained, but they were sitting at the rock garden and smoking. I moved towards the mansion.

‘The first thing I did was to lock the door to the staff quarters. I didn’t want any of them coming out and getting in my way. I was planning to enter through the back door, as that was the shortest way to Fernandez’s room.

‘But before I could go in, I heard someone come down the walkway. He must have come out of the front door, and was going towards the chapel. I ran to the trees behind the mansion and hid there, watching. As I watched him enter the chapel, I recognized him. You know who it was?’

Athreya nodded. ‘Richie.’

‘Yes…Richie. I crept up close to the chapel, wondering what Richie was doing there in the middle of the night. I had just walked around to the building, when I saw someone in a gown come down the path from Sunset Deck.

‘I stood flat against the chapel wall and watched. To my surprise, it was a woman in a nightgown—the major’s wife. She passed within ten feet of me, and entered the chapel through a window. I needed no imagination to know what was going on.

‘With two people inside the chapel, it would be risky for me to attempt my work. I decided to wait. Just then, I saw yet another person, again dressed in a gown. I was too far away to make out who it was, and even to make out whether it was a man or a woman.

‘This person was about to enter through the chapel door when muted sounds came from inside. The woman’s giggling carried far in the night air. They stopped and went to the trees behind the mansion and stood there, waiting for Richie and the woman to finish and leave. I could no longer see them.

‘We must have waited for half an hour or forty-five minutes. At last, the woman left the way she had come, and Richie slipped out through the door and returned to the mansion. The person then waited for five more minutes before entering the chapel.

‘A minute later, I heard a loud gasp from the chapel, as if the person had seen something surprising and terrible.

The next moment, I saw the figure run out of the chapel and down the walkway, past the mansion.

‘By this time, I was getting jittery. I had encountered too many unexpected hurdles. It was not my lucky night. Experience had taught me not to carry out my work when luck was not with me. I aborted my mission and returned to the Misty Valley Resort.

‘The next day, I heard about Phillip’s death and thanked my stars for having aborted my mission. That, sir, is my whole story. I have left out nothing.’

‘Okay,’ Athreya nodded slowly. ‘But you know more about Abbas than you have told me.’

‘About the murder?’ the mongrel asked. ‘No, there is nothing more.’

‘Not about the murder…but about something else. About Abbas’s business.’

‘I know nothing about his resort.’

‘Not the resort, my friend. His other business. The one that brings him money by the truckload. The one he runs across the Western Ghats.’

The mongrel blanched. He looked away, muttering, ‘I don’t know what you mean.’

‘Oh, you do,’ Athreya disputed. ‘You have been here long enough to know what I am talking about.’

‘I…I have nothing to do with it. It is not something I touch even with a pole. It’s a dirty business… I’ve seen what it does to young men and women. It converts boys into thieves and makes girls sell their bodies. I’ve seen how addicts die… My father was one. I don’t touch it.’

‘I am not saying you touch it. I’m saying that you know something about Abbas’s drug business. You are a man who watches, a man who listens. The resort has been raided several times, but nothing has ever been found. The stock is being stored somewhere not far from here.’

The mongrel licked his lips and remained silent.

‘An anti-drug team is in town now,’ Athreya persisted softly, trying to persuade him. ‘If you help them crack the case, the police and the judge will count it in your favour.’ The mongrel hesitated. He was in two minds. Athreya knew what he was thinking.

This was an opportunity for him to play his card for his own benefit. Abbas was already neck-deep in trouble by having put out a contract on Bhaskar. Milking him now would be difficult. On the other hand, what Athreya had said was true—the police and the courts tended to look favourably upon those who helped fight drugs.

The mongrel looked up.

‘Abbas has a hidden cellar at the Misty Valley Resort,’ he said. ‘And there is this shack in Coonoor…’

* * *

The shack turned out to be one among a dozen that stood scattered on a slope beside a potholed lane on the outskirts of Coonoor. A hundred feet below was a black-topped road that ran north from the town towards the valley that housed Greybrooke Manor and the Misty Valley Resort.

Near the shacks was a tea shop that doubled as a small restaurant, and a cigarette stall. A clutch of idle men loitered around, smoking and sipping tea.

Half an hour after Athreya spoke to the mongrel, a man who appeared to be a daily-wage worker sauntered in and struck up conversation with the cigarette-stall owner. Another man wandered into