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The roseate hues of Nehar’s smiling face had been replaced by a much-dispirited expression.
The exhilaration on knowing about Jumaid’s visit to the police station and his subsequent narration of events that followed after, between Veda and Jumaid on that fateful Sunday had done much to ephemerally light up her appearance before plunging into a grave knowledge, that the secret her husband painfully nursed, which purposelessly bounced between the three of them was a secret no longer.
‘This secret is safe with us’ Pavil said noting Nehar’s nervous expressions.
She looked distracted ‘Thank you’ she smiled weakly.
‘There are a few things we’d like to clear, just so there’s complete transparency between us, Mrs Sinhal.’ Khar said pragmatically throwing an invisible glance at Pavil whose face was a map of imbecilic fervour.
‘Anything, just please understand that Veda had nothing to do with any of this. How was he to even know that Sunday would turn into such a nightmare? Such coincidence he got himself into this odd mess..I mean this tragic affair; that you needed his alibi and he could offer you no more than refusal..’
‘yes, indeed’ Khar interrupted uninterested in another echo. He didn’t need a replay of facts that disproved their only theory which helped clear their only suspect. The forensic results were pending, but he saw no reason to pursue the forensics lab anymore.
He looked at her a long moment, before deciding that she was indeed a rather beautiful woman, even if not the most honest kinds, and maybe he was thinking too much into it but funny that she should use the word coincidence.
‘Mr Wasim was rather vehement about his understanding that you implicitly hated him’ Khar continued.
Nehar blinked slowly as though exacerbated by that name. ‘No matter how certain he may have seemed about this almost accurate hypothesis, I doubt even Mr Wasim has the vocabulary to meticulously detail my hatred in appropriate words.
Hating perhaps is too weak a word for the fantastically extravagant loathing I preserve for him’
Pavil’s heart had leapt with joy and probably shone out of his eyes for at that moment Nehar gave him a knowing smile, and all was indeed well in the world for him, or even if he did imagine it, she’d hated Jumaid and rightly so.
‘You need only guess my reasons for despising him’ She continued in her silky voice. The painful depths apparent on her face a few days ago were slowly creasing over by her identifiable intractable attraction.
‘Not only was he having an affair with my husband, but he also never bothered to even once, think about Veda’s reputation. My husband’s a reputable family man, an illustrious name with a wife and a child, not some adulterer who spends nights in sleazy hotels’ she paused, letting a grieved smirk linger on her face ‘and yet, that is exactly what my husband was, or is, rather. He put his entire career and family life at stake for that spineless human waste.’ Nehar was furious in her calmness.
Pavil had been raising his eyebrows ever since Nehar started talking and now he realized his eyebrows couldn’t find a way any further down the back of his spine.
Why did she look like she was putting an act? Khar was unable to sidestep the little performance of a lamenting faithful wife that she was trying to be, or was she?
‘And yet, you’ve been dedicated to him, Loyally might I add, distressing over his commitment to save Mr Wasim’s name and face’ Khar needled her.
‘It was distressing, yes, but not out of jealousy, nor out of the goodness of my heart, I assure you’ Nehar leaned back on her chair, bringing out a gold cigarette case, much like Veda’s with her initials stylishly emblazoned in tiny crystals.
Pavil couldn’t stand to look at those cigarettes anymore. Did anyone know the kind of pressure they put on him, was anyone aware that they were found at the crime scene?
He kept these thoughts to himself and affixed his heart on Nehar’s smile that was deliciously enriching her features as she spoke.
She blew out a thin stream of spicy smoke and drew in a deep breath. ’You’re aware of the family I belong to?’
Pavil’s nonsensical nod and mute agreement to everything she said was annoying Khar.
‘The Sinhal residence is, in fact, my ancestral home and sadly in cases of fortuitous fame glued to generations of important names one tends to find themselves sculpted within layers of ineludible stonework and when your only purpose of existence is maintaining the said sanctity of an established sculpture, you often forget the real reason for living, such as it is, and that is exactly what I was doing’
‘Keeping your family name from being tarnished’ Khar said tersely.
‘And his. A foreign affairs diplomat from a prominent political party does not carry on extracurricular activities outside of his perfect marriage.’
Such as it is Khar thought.
‘So knowing all this, as you did, you tolerated Mr Wasim’s presence in your house? Inviting him to soirées and parties.’
Nehar was toying with her cigarette, watching the ashen end grow into a long white ash stick, which she flicked thoughtlessly in an empty styrofoam teacup.
‘The things we tolerate for our children’ she wet her voice in a lugubrious tone.
‘Tejan and Majid, as I have told you were inseparable and just for that, and for that alone I suffered and tolerated their futile family’ she sighed.
‘Tejan would get upset if I didn’t have them over for our parties, moreover’ she smirked ‘If I somehow forgot to send the Wasim family an invite, Veda saw to it that they were never missed out on, and so and so forth.’ she paused to stub the cigarette end inside the empty cup ‘my only satisfaction being that Meina, Jumaid’s wife, was almost as uneasy in these get together’s as I was. Though to be fair I’ve rarely seen her at ease’ Nehar tepidly smiled.
‘And Majid, he came to these parties too?’ Pavil asked.
Nehar’s face contorted into a distasteful sneer ‘what could ever keep that little garbage away? He loved Tejan and that was all he ever loved.’
Khar sat folding his hands ‘But you didn’t seem to share the same love for your son’s best friend?’ he asked.
She lifted her beautiful eyes to stare as though questioning his idiotic question.
‘If I reserved unspeakable loathing for Jumaid, then his son, Majid, revulsed me. I couldn’t bear to look at that thing. He was pitiful rubbish’ she hissed.
Pavil's eyeballs nearly popped out.
‘But he was just a child’ Pavil said abruptly.
‘A thirteen-year-old isn't as much a child as they'd have you believe. They're aware, they understand and they know.’ Nehar’s voice was a restrained rage.
This seemed to be taking a rather curious turn.
‘What did he know Mrs Sinhal?’
Nehar blinked rapidly ‘Majid was a problem child, you’re aware of that by now, aren’t you?
But I can’t say it was his fault entirely. It takes a real family to bring up little boys, they lack the sensibility that all girls seem to be born with.’ she said lighting another cigarette in hopes to evade Khar’s heartless question.
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