Deadly incidents- 8

Read part 7 - here

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Life can oft times throw revelations at you with its generous hands, and before you know it they fix a tight grip around your neck and squeeze with the deliberate viciousness intending to extract your last breath and you stand powerless on your knees, staring up at a face that is plastered with a grin refusing to manufacture the smallest shred of regret as it watches you struggle and applies pressure on your neck through the fingertips like a practiced strangulation artist and your arms, or rather my arms that are uselessly flailing in air, trying to connect with any body part of this madman only succeed in pulling at his shirt and it’s no use tugging at it with my outstretched fingers because I have trouble seeing. 

It’s dark and every second the air gets more precious. My fingers try to pry at the ones clenching my throat but I don’t think they much succeed. I pull and pinch at the skin on his knuckles and maybe they produce some momentary pain because his smile turns into a passing grimace but seems I have only angered him and he pushes a thumb into my neck to speed up the throttling and this is by far the most asphyxiating part of this ordeal. 

It feels odd, this way to die, suffocation is horrible. It’s like a really bad hangover, the kind of hangover that makes you want to throw your innards out your mouth, the kind of intense nausea that makes you wish for death except here I was really dying and though I never did really anticipate this kind of outcome I hated it, even more, to realize that my gun was lying a few feet from my soon to be dead body and what a tragedy it would be to come armed and get fooled into getting killed, if I really died here at this moment, smothered by these inhumanly large hands I’d never be able to forgive myself.

I'd have gouged this bastard’s eyes had he been at my face level but my arms droop down to the floor and something sharp punctures my fingertips.

 I fumble along the length of the sharp object trying to pick it and though I can feel the edge of the broken glass tearing my palm the pain isn’t half as deadly and small as this sliver may be, I manage to limply drag it along the floor and drive it through the fabric of his pants and into his leg. 

I can suddenly breathe but not too well because maybe some damage has been done. The hands let go of me momentarily and a booted foot meets my face but I smile because somewhere from the world outside I hear Khar shouting my name. 

Pavil stood in the orderly kitchen of the Chowk apartment, staring at a large bag of protein supplement that Avi might have probably downed either before or after coming from the gym.

Atop the refrigerator was another framed photograph of the happy couple cooking together. 

He was for some reason unknown to him photographing the neatly stacked crockery. They looked different in an expensive way and the more he saw this apartment the more he noted the woman’s presence in it. 

The kind of rich wood that made the bookshelves. The coffee table atop which sat speckless crystal showpieces that looked valuable. 

Fancy looking sugar jars and old timepieces sat extravagantly in neatly carved antique boxes. 

Avi had luxurious tastes and a certain eye that woman of such interest possess. Pavil found it interesting to know some more aspects of the woman that most of her friends and relatives couldn’t narrate, possible because she had such few of them.

She didn't leave too many people to grieve behind.

A soft step of footsteps stood behind him.

‘Yes Reyan’

‘Toni.’

‘Eh?’

‘hunk180 is a man named Toni, or at least that’s his alias if not a real name.’ Reyan spoke softly noting Pavil clicking pictures of walls and paintings and carvings. He found it odd but who’s to say.

‘He was working at the same studio as her as a fitness instructor to the actors.’ Reyan said. ‘Seems like he was freelancing and had been referred to by..uh..Avi herself. There isn’t much they know about him except that his contract was over and he was beginning something of his own on a larger scale and had needed the money he got from that freelancing job.’ Reyan narrated all the information he’d collected on the mystery man. ‘The studio executives and staff, as well as the actors, have only good things to say about him and no one much indicated on any..umm..misdeed on his part.’

Pavil raised an eyebrow. ‘You mean no word on any so and so between him and the woman.’

 ‘Er, yes.’

‘Also, he previously worked at the same gym and the health club owners don’t seem to know much about him either but there is a picture of him on one of their walls, and here.’ Reyan extended his phone towards Pavil to some more raised eyebrows. ‘Hmm, Hercules indeed.’ Pavil muttered.

‘We have no knowledge of his whereabouts ?’

‘Not yet, but we are trying to trace him, and the watchman has seen someone of Toni’s description visiting this compound on and off though he couldn’t say for sure where he went after entering the complex.’

‘Seems like he did use the fire exit at the back to get into this apartment then.’ Pavil said and Reyan nodded.

Pavil’s phone rang to disrupt the building mount of question marks in that house and Khar’s detached voice floated through. 

‘Not in that apartment right now, are you?’ Pavil didn’t seem surprised. It was Khar’s way of knowing these things that had always dazzled Pavil.

‘I’m with Dr Chattur’ Khar spoke without waiting for a reply ‘and though the autopsy report might take a few days, the doctor has been most kind to furnish me with some information.’ 

Pavil felt his heart beat unsteadily. ‘Is there something incriminating? any anomaly?’ he quickly spoke.

‘The wound is consistent with the scene, in that she died almost immediately after having had her head banged against something heavy and blunt, which could have been the platform, at least for now we can keep the theory, but here’s the other thing Pavil.’ 

Khar was silent for a heartbeat. ‘Seems she was one month pregnant at the time of her death’ he said gravely.