Missing
Part 2
Feeling lost? Read the first part of the story here: Missing Part 1
The next morning, when Sumedha informed Mr. Rao about the intruder, he was deeply worried. He, along with his workers combed through the property but couldn’t find anything. There were no CCTV cameras around and as Sumedha had never seen the man before, it was hard for them to pinpoint anyone.
Mr. Rao told her that he could make some temporary arrangements and let her sleep in the house but she politely refused. She wasn’t sure if the accusations made by Seeta and Geeta about him were true, but she wasn’t comfortable with the fact that they would be sleeping under the same roof.
Two days later, Sumedha was returning from the Aashraya Trust office in the city. The search for Srishti was still on, but there was no sign of her. It was an open secret that everyone was losing hope that she was alive, but nobody dared to say it out loud. Sumedha walked to the bus stop, thinking that the weather also resonated her mood with the ever-pouring rain. She stood waiting for the bus to arrive. As she was looking around, she saw with a jolt that the man who had come into the guest house was sitting three seats away from her.
Sumedha moved swiftly and stood in front of him. The guy looked up from his phone and gasped. Sumedha quickly started questioning him. “Why were you outside the guest house in Kamalooru two nights ago? How do you know Srishti? Do you know where she is?”
He squirmed in his seat. “I wasn’t anywhere near the guest house. I don’t know who you are. Leave me alone.”
“I’m not going anywhere. Let’s go to the Police station and we’ll see who’s innocent and who isn’t.”
He desperately looked around for a way out. People had already started noticing them and when he knew it would be difficult to escape, he said in a low voice, “Let’s get away from here. I’ll tell you everything, please.”
Something in his voice made Sumedha agree and they went to the restaurant opposite the bus stop and sat down. “Alright,” said Sumedha, after she ordered coffee for both of them. “Tell me why I shouldn’t take you to the Police station.”
He took a deep breath and started. “My name is Avinash. I work at the bank here. I’m Naliniyamma’s son.” After seeing Sumedha’s puzzled face, he added, “Our house is near the milk booth. You must have seen my mother along with Girija aunty.” Oh, Seeta! This man was Seeta’s son. Sumedha nodded.
“Srishti and I, well, we liked each other. Please, don’t be angry,” he said, clearly frightened by Sumedha’s shocked face. “We became friends during the commute from and to Kamalooru. We were careful to make sure that no one in our town knew about us and would meet only here. She didn’t want to come back to the Mysore Ashraya Trust, she hated it there. You were the only one who made it bearable.”
Sumedha’s throat was burning, trying to hold back her tears. She felt anger, disappointment, betrayal, and sadness, all at the same time.
“Did she tell you where she wanted to go?”
He shook his head. “She wasn’t sure herself. Her short-term plan was to work full-time at the Aashraya Trust here and then figure things out.”
He swallowed and continued. “We didn’t meet on the day she went missing as she had to work late. I was sick that night so I slept very early and didn’t call her. The next morning, Rao called everyone in the town to ask about Srishti. He said that she hadn’t returned to the guest house last night and now she’s nowhere to be seen.”
“Hold on,” said Srishti. “I talked to your mother almost a week ago. She mentioned nothing about any of this. Doesn’t she know about you and Srishti?”
Avinash’s face grew dark. “She had once come here to the city for some work and saw us together. She asked me about it that night and I told her what was going on. She was furious. She said she couldn’t accept an orphan as her daughter-in-law. Srishti and I hadn’t talked about it that far into the future, but I was angry at my mother for saying such a thing. We had a huge fight and after that, we don’t talk about Srishti at all. She wouldn’t have wanted you to know that her son was involved.”
Sumedha had too many questions but she realized she had to ask the right ones. “The Aashraya Trust volunteers know nothing about you. Why?”
“I, um, I didn’t want to get involved in the case,” he said, not quite meeting Sumedha’s eyes. “I got scared. What if they placed the blame on me? So, I didn’t tell anyone anything. Srishti never told anyone about us in the Trust either, so nobody came looking for me.”
Sumedha had to bite her lower lip to control her impulse to slap him. She asked through clenched teeth, “Then what were you doing at the guest house that night?”
Still staring down into his hands, Avinash said, “I had given a few gifts to Srishti. I knew that the room that she used to stay in was locked. That night, I was trying to sneak into the guest house and take back those gifts somehow, so that they wouldn’t be traced back to me. But I wasn’t expecting you to be there. For a second, I thought that Srishti was back, but after seeing you, I was afraid that I’d get caught and I bolted.”
“So you didn’t come there, concerned about Srishti. You came there to save your ass.”
“It’s not like that, you don’t understand.”
Sumedha didn’t want to talk to this person anymore. She called for the bill and asked, “Is there anything you know that can actually help find Srishti?”
Avinash looked up and said, “Everyone thinks Rao did something to her. He’s not a nice man. He just keeps chasing one woman after the other. Srishti never said anything bad about him, but you never know.”
Sumedha sighed. This wasn’t a piece of new information, but she vowed to keep an eye on Avinash. She didn’t think of him to be so brave as to even attempt to do any harm to Srishti, but as he had said, you never know. They left the restaurant and Avinash said that he had some work and would board the last bus home and hurried away.
Sumedha got into the bus after a few minutes of waiting and kept thinking of the turn of events. She was sad that Srishti wasn’t more open with her about wanting to get away from the Mysore Trust. There was something that could be done and maybe this whole fiasco could have been avoided. She knew it was just wishful thinking, and it tore her heart to think where she was now, and what was happening to her.
It was almost dinnertime when she got off the bus and started walking to the guest house, still absorbed in her thoughts. The roads were empty, and she jumped when there was a honk very close to her. She looked around, annoyed, and then broke into a smile when she saw that it was Arjun on his bike.
“Out so late?” he asked good-humouredly.
“Oh, just coming back from the Trust.”
“You look very dull. Are you okay?”
She realized with embarrassment that she looked like a mess. She mumbled “I’m fine,” and tried to fix her flyaway hair by running her fingers through them.
Arjun smiled and said, “You look like you could use some coffee. Do you want to come over to my house?”
Sumedha hesitated, but she felt like she would go crazy if she were alone. She nodded and climbed on his bike.
After she sat down on the sofa while Arjun went in to change and make coffee, Sumedha started looking around again and noticed a few things she had missed the last time. Although the living room had decorations, the walls were empty. There were nails driven into them, indicating that the things that used to hang there were taken down.
Arjun caught her looking at the nails and said, “I have a story about these, but I don’t want to bore you.”
“What happened? Come on, tell me.”
“Okay, your death wish,” he laughed and started the story, “The night I got my wife Megha’s letter that she wasn’t planning on returning home ever, I got super drunk and started getting rid of all her stuff. There were at least twenty pictures of us hung all over the house and I, in a drunken stupor, took each one down. I deleted all of her pictures from my phone, laptop, Google Drive, you name it. Then I went to our backyard, threw all the framed pictures, our wedding album, her clothes, and other things that belonged to her, and started a bonfire. I looked at it with satisfaction and fell asleep right in front of it,” he shook his head. “It was like I was possessed. When I woke up sometime in the afternoon, I realized what I had done, but it was too late. I had deleted every backup too. My drunk self made sure of that.”
“I didn’t feel like asking anyone for pictures, I still don’t know why,” he looked like he would cry. “Now, I’m slowly forgetting how she looked. Sometimes I remember, but sometimes, I just cannot. I’m afraid that one day, the memory of my wife’s face will be completely erased and I won’t be able to do anything about it.”
Sumedha felt a fresh wave of anger course through her, this time for Arjun’s wife. Here was a handsome, kind-hearted man, wealthy enough to live comfortably, but his wife threw it all out the window and left him in this state.
They sat in silence, Sumedha staring into her cup and Arjun staring at the bare walls. She thought he might still see the pictures hung there, a wedding picture on the right, a few travel pictures beside it, maybe a family photo after that. “I think you need help,” she said. “There’s nothing wrong in asking for help when you need it.”
“You mean therapy?” He sighed. “I’ve thought about it, sure, but I never mustered the courage to do that. I hate living like this, you know,” he looked up at her. “I wish I could get my old life back. Might not get my wife back, but I miss my old self. Maybe I needed someone else to remind me,” a small smile appeared on his face. “I’m feeling a lot better about the idea of therapy. Maybe I will do it. Thank you.”
Although she felt like she got undeserved credit, Sumedha still felt happy. It was nice to see a smile on that sad, worn face. Arjun suddenly said, “Do you want to have dinner together? It’s been so long that I’ve eaten with another person. Of course, there’s no pressure, only if you wish,” he became silent, waiting for her reply.
Sumedha was unsure. She knew she still had to cook back at the guest house and she was hungry. But would she be okay? It had started raining again.
“I’ll walk you back to the guest house after dinner if that’s okay.”
Oh, what the hell. “Yes, that would be lovely.”
Arjun’s face lit up and he went inside the kitchen to prepare dinner. Sumedha was about to go help him when her phone rang. It was from one of the volunteers of the Aashraya Trust.
“Hello?”
“Sumedha! The Police have discovered a body that was washed up on the river bank by the heavy tides. They said that it looked like it was tied down by rocks, but the body got disentangled and got washed up due to the heavy rain. They think it’s Srishti.”
Sumedha flopped down on the sofa. She had to hold the phone in both of her hands to stop them from shaking.
“They’ve brought the body to the city hospital and we’re about to go in now to identify. Will you be able to come? Can Mr. Rao escort you?”
Sumedha had difficulty finding words. Her throat had gone completely dry. “I, I… I’ll come. I’ll do something.”
Arjun came out to see what happened and looking at her tear-stricken face, asked, “Srishti..?”
Sumedha nodded and burst out crying. Arjun sat down beside her and held her hand till she could compose herself. When she told him what the volunteer had told her, he said, “Let’s go then.”
“Can you lock the door? Here are the keys, I just need to check if the bike has enough petrol, if not, I have a can handy, I’ll be filling it up,” he rushed outside.
Sumedha wanted to have a glass of water. She felt that she would die otherwise. She went into the kitchen and poured herself a glass. As she gulped it down, she heard a dull thud coming from the opposite room. Momentarily forgetting about Srishti, she went in to see what it was.
It was a small bedroom with a neatly made double bed. She jumped a little when she saw her reflection in the mirror as she turned around, trying to figure out the source of the sound. Then she heard it again, and it was coming from below her feet. She moved back a couple of steps, confused.
Slowly, she came down on her hands and knees and put her ears on the floor. She could hear a low dragging of metal followed by a thud. Her heart was beating out of her chest. Was someone down there?
There was a huge carpet covering most of the floor and Sumedha dragged it to a corner with great difficulty. There was a very small ring on an otherwise even floor and she pulled it with all her might. It flopped back suddenly and Sumedha fell back hard. It was a trap door, with stairs leading to the basement.
Sumedha put her face a little inside the stairs and said, “Hello? Is anybody there?”
“Mmmmmmmmm!!”
Sumedha got down slowly on the stairs. There was a small bulb that was mercifully turned on, providing a little light. As her eyes adjusted to the light, Sumedha saw that it was a large dungeon, used as a storeroom. It looked straight out of a horror movie with old, broken things everywhere and the low light cast a ghastly glow over them.
Sumedha’s phone, still on the sofa, started ringing and it was from the volunteer from the Trust. The phone call came in twice, unanswered. Then Sumedha’s phone lit up with the notification for a message, “Body not of Srishti. Some other girl was missing a few months ago, it was her. Thank God!”
“Mmmmmmph!!”
Sumedha jumped so violently at the sight that she banged her hand on the shelf standing beside her and cried in pain. There was Srishti, sitting at the end of the room on a small mattress, with her hands and legs bound to a huge chain. The chain ran long and there was a heavy metal ball attached to it. What Sumedha had heard before was Srishti moving around, dragging the ball and chain with her. Her mouth was tied with a rag.
Sumedha ran to her and untied the rag. Srishti gasped and coughed.
“What, how? Arjun!” was all Sumedha managed to say. Srishti had started wheezing.
“Let’s get you out of here first. Do you know where the key for the chain is?”
Srishti opened her mouth to say something, but her eyes went wide as she looked beyond Sumedha’s shoulder. Before Sumedha could turn around, she felt a sharp pain on the back of her head and the world turned black.
Sumedha opened her eyes slowly. Her eyelids felt heavy and her head hurt really bad. She wondered what happened to her as she tried to touch the back of her head and was shocked by the metal clang. She looked at her hands and her head swam as everything came flooding back. She sat up quickly and felt like throwing up. Breathing heavily, she looked around. She was sitting at the exact spot where Srishti was previously sitting, with her hands and legs bound the same way. She didn’t see Srishti anywhere. Sumedha tried to scream but nothing but a muffle came out through the smelly rag bound around her mouth.
“Oh! you’re awake.” Arjun came out of the shadows, smiling. “I was getting worried.”
Sumedha tried kicking the chain and Arjun started laughing. “You won’t be able to run away again, Megha.”
Sumedha stopped kicking and looked up. Did he just call her by his wife’s name?
“Look, I know you’re angry at me,” he said, slowly walked and sat down in front of her as she tried to crawl back against the wall. “I know I didn’t listen to you when you first suggested consulting a psychiatrist, I know. Was our marriage so fragile that you thought it was good enough to leave me?”
“I know I’ve made mistakes, a lot of them. I also troubled those poor girls thinking they were you! Can you imagine?” he laughed. “How silly of me. Sure, I got confused for the last two times, but this time, I’m sure.”
“I knew you’d come back to me eventually. Of course, you’d change your name and act as if you didn’t know me. I knew you’d do that, you smart lady, you.”
Arjun was mad with excitement. He looked like a kid who had found his long-lost toy that was his favorite. “You know, they discovered the first girl. I was so careful, I had tied her properly with rocks, but curse this damn rain. But this time I was smart. I buried her deep in the forest. They’ll never find her,” he smiled with satisfaction. “Don’t worry, nothing will happen to me. The first girl wasn’t even from here.”
Sumedha moaned. Tears kept rolling off her cheeks.
“I didn’t hurt them! No, I just put them to sleep and then put them away, I promise. And once I’m sure that you won’t go running off again, we can stay together upstairs. Everything will be back to normal.”
Not one person gathered around Mr. Rao’s house could hear the muffled cries coming from the basement of the house at the end of the street.
