Page 54

Shakeel’s Demise
That early dawn, waking up to the first ring tone of his mobile, so as not to disturb Radha lying beside him, Dhruva swathed it off readily, and moving out of the bedroom, he realized the call was from Shakeel’s cell. As he was kept on hold for long when he returned the call, he dialed Shakeel’s residential number he found it ever engaged; however, the stalemate ended as Shakeel’s son got Dhruva on the mobile. Shocked at hearing that the cop had died in his sleep, Dhruva was dumbfounded, and recovering, he wondered whether he too went the Ranjit way. Changing into his formals in the bedroom, as he recalled Radha’s fears for Shakeel’s life, he instinctively looked at her; finding her in serene sleep, he told Raju to inform her about the development it as she woke up.
When Dhruva reached Shakeel’s Chatrinaka home, he had to wade through the milling crowd to make it to the cop’s corpse. While all thought that he could have died of a stroke, insisting for a post-mortem, as Dhruva began his investigation, it transpired that it was business as usual for him on the day of his death and that there was none to be suspected anyway.
On his return, as Dhruva aired his apprehensions about Shakeel’s death to Radha, she voiced her suspicions about Pravar’s possible involvement in it. What if Kavya is Pravar’s next targets Kavya for she would have called it quits with him, so thought Dhruva; if it were Pravar who had seen Ranjit’s end to own Kavya, would he let her go scot-free by ditching him? If he really avenged himself on Shakeel for foisting a false case on him, would he go soft on his ladylove for being hard on him? Sexual hurt was as compelling an impulse as any to commit crime, and Shakeel did sketch this fellow as cunning and ruthless. Well, why place the cart before the horse; let the post-mortem report arrive.
When the forensic tests confirmed Shakeel’s death by poisoning, Dhruva was truly worried about Kavya’s safety, and to have a word with her, he drove down to Spandan. Receiving him warmly and finding his enamored look flattering as well as embarrassing, Kavya became tentative, but as he succeeded in hiding his emotions she revealed to him that some cop came to enquire about her whereabouts the other day. As Dhruva wanted to have her take on the probability of Pravar avenging himself on Shakeel, she said that it was true that he was obsessed with the idea of revenge and she too used to urge him against it. After Ranjit’s death as she turned cold towards him, he begged her not to desert him for he might go berserk all again, but sick and tired of her shameful liaison with him, she was firm not to yield to him come what may. Who knew, he could have killed the cop hoping that she would reach upto him to renew her counseling, so be it but there was no way she would succumb to him ever again.