STIFLED
CHAPTER TEN
Both Salim and Samar had attended Mira's cremation. So had a few others from Prisma, including their CEO. And Sanika and Shruti of course. Salim had talked to Mira's parents, assuring them that no stone would be left unturned until they caught the guy who did this.
Samar used the opportunity to talk to the CEO, Pramod Gadkari, a man in his early fifties with sharp eyes and a deceptively congenial expression. Predictably, the man hadn't been convinced of someone from Prisma being the killer and very politely told Samar that if he wanted personal information files, then he needed to get a warrant first. A time-taking process, especially with the current evidence. But there was no way around it, so Samar told Salim to get started on the process.
He had spotted Karan Malhotra too. The guy had looked shattered, broken to pieces as he introduced himself to Mira's parents before placing a huge bunch of roses of various colours beside the large framed photograph of Mira. As Harriet Beecher Stowe once said, the bitterest tears shed over graves are for words left unsaid and deeds left undone. Karan's tears reminded him of that.
The days after Mira's cremation blurred together for Sanika like watercolour left out in the rain. She went to work. She came home. She ate when Samar put food in front of her and forgot to eat when he didn't. She answered emails, attended meetings, and smiled when people offered their condolences, and through all of it there was a hollow space behind her sternum where Mira's laugh used to live.
It was the small things that ambushed her. Reaching for her phone to text the group chat and remembering that the group was now two. Walking past the Thai restaurant where they used to have their Friday dinners and seeing three chairs at a table and knowing one would always be empty. Finding a hair tie in her bag -- one of Mira's, the pink elastic kind she favoured -- and having to lock herself in the office bathroom for ten minutes because the tears wouldn't stop.
Shruti was no better. The dark circles under her eyes had deepened to the colour of old bruises, and she had developed a habit of starting sentences with "Mira used to say..." before catching herself and falling silent. They clung to each other at work, eating lunch together at Mira's favourite spot in the cafeteria courtyard, under the neem tree where she used to park her bike. Neither of them mentioned the empty third chair. They didn't need to.
Samar noticed. He noticed everything, the bastard. He didn't offer platitudes or tell her time would heal. Instead, he made sure there was hot tea waiting when she came home. He adjusted his schedule so their morning runs overlapped, and he ran in companionable silence beside her, matching his longer stride to hers, saying nothing and saying everything. Once, when she stumbled on the uneven footpath and he caught her arm, he held on for three seconds longer than necessary and she let him, and that small contact was more comforting than any words could have been.
On Wednesday evening, almost a week after Mira's death, Sanika was sitting on the floor of her living room, surrounded by a mess of photographs she'd been sorting through. Pictures of the three of them -- Mira, Shruti, and herself -- spanning nearly four years of friendship. Birthday parties, office picnics, weekend brunches, one disastrous attempt at a road trip to Mahabaleshwar where they'd gotten lost and ended up at a wedding reception and somehow stayed for the entire event.
Samar found her there when he came to check on her. He didn't say anything. He sat down on the floor beside her, picked up a photo of Mira making a ridiculous face at the camera, and smiled. "She looks like trouble."
"She was," Sanika whispered. "The best kind."
They sat there for an hour, not really talking, just existing in the same space while she sorted through her grief and her photographs. When he finally left, she felt lighter. Not healed -- healing was a long way off -- but lighter, as though someone had taken a small portion of the weight she was carrying and placed it on their own shoulders.
It was a Thursday -- pizza night, as it had somehow become. Samar had ordered from the place around the corner, the one that made its dough fresh and used real mozzarella instead of the processed stuff. Sanika had declared that if she was going to grieve, she was going to grieve with carbs, and he had no argument against that logic.
"So, almost everyone you know had come to convey their condolences," Samar stated after hearing her debrief of the day at Prisma. Sanika nodded. "Anyone unexpected? Or stayed longer than necessary? Any undue interest in what you're going through...?"
"Not really. Everyone just seemed normal and concerned. Sympathy from my boss had been unexpected, so was Arnab from Shruti's department. Oh, Shruti said even Ruhi had come to convey her condolences. She is one prissy lady, I tell you. Hell, even Patel opened his mouth to actually form a few sentences. He is a geeky kid, but ask him to talk and he pales." She sighed and stated, "It's weird that I'm eating a pizza." She bit into the veg exotica pizza slice. "It's weird that I'm even feeling hungry. Don't you think so?" she asked with her mouth still full.
The pizza box sat open between them on the coffee table, filling the room with the warm, yeasty scent of fresh dough and melted cheese. Outside, the Pune evening had settled into that particular shade of amber that came just before the streetlights kicked on, and through the open window she could hear the distant honking of traffic on the main road, the chatter of the neighbour's TV, and the rhythmic thwack-thwack of someone beating clothes on a washing stone.
Samar guzzled the Coke from the bottle before extending it to her. "A few years back, Salim and I were working a case. A group had killed a whole family. Husband, wife, three kids, and elderly parents. The whole house had been awash in blood and gore. We sent the bodies for postmortem, did the initial round of investigation, and you know what we did after that?" She shook her head, curious. "We went and had our lunch." He paused, letting his statement sink in. "We had to catch the guys who had barely left behind any clues. We needed our minds and bodies to be alert. For that we need food. Starving doesn't solve anything except make us weak and sloppy. You are eating. Doesn't mean you are insensitive."
Sanika chewed slowly, considering this. She watched him as he ate -- efficiently, without self-consciousness, the way he did everything. His hands were clean but calloused, the knuckles still bearing faint scars from that encounter with the politician's bodyguard weeks ago. There was a small scar on his left forearm that she hadn't noticed before, a thin white line running from his wrist to his elbow. She wanted to ask about it. She wanted to ask about a lot of things.
"Do you ever have nightmares?" she asked instead. "About the cases?"
He was quiet for a moment, finishing his slice before answering. "Sometimes. Not about the cases themselves, but about being too late. Arriving a minute after. Seeing what could have been prevented." He met her eyes. "That's why I don't sleep much."
"That explains the 5 AM runs."
"Among other things." A ghost of a smile. "The runs help. The work helps. Having someone to come home to helps." He said it simply, without emphasis, but something in his tone made her breath catch.
"You know, I never asked you before -- what did you study before you became a cop?" Sanika leaned forward in her chair, propping her elbows on the table.
"B.Com," came the bland reply. "Passed in third class," he added, polishing off his third pizza slice.
Sanika, about to pick up her second slice, stopped and stared before thrusting one leg up towards him. "Here, pull the other one."
He bit back his shout of laughter. "What? You don't believe me?" Her reply was a grunt as she resumed eating. "How did you know?" he asked curiously.
"Your English is too good for a guy who struggled to clear his B.Com. Out with it."
His grin broke free. "Psychology MA and BL."
"You're a lawyer too?" Her eyes bugged out.
"I didn't enrol in the bar."
"Knowledge is power. I get it. But psychology!"
He shrugged. "Nothing is easier than denouncing the evildoer."
"Nothing more difficult than understanding him," Sanika finished the Dostoyevsky quote, grinning at his look of surprise. "Which university?"
"PU."
"You studied in Chandigarh?" He nodded. "Salim too?" His eyebrows shot up, so she shot a look heavenward and elaborated. "You two talk in that silent code language. I saw it that night he came to your house and also today."
He grinned. "We used that code language while we had been together in the academy and mastered it during the first couple of postings. Same city. And you? You joined Prisma soon after your studies?"
"Yeah. Campus recruitment. Initially I was excited that I would be back in Pune until the daily traffic battle registered." She ran a hand through her cropped hair. "Hence the haircut. Saves time."
"I like it. It suits you."
"I thought most south Indian men liked women with long hair."
"I'm not most men."
As if she didn't know that, she thought with mild amusement. "So were you guys able to catch the guys after having the lunch?"
He gave a brief nod. "Not immediately, but yes. We caught them. They were a pack."
"A pack? Like wolves?"
"Like wolves. They worked together, killed together. Had a leader who directed everything from somewhere else. Took us six months to nail the bastard."
"And during those six months?"
"We didn't stop eating." The ghost of a smile played on his lips, but his eyes were serious. "Sanika, you're going to have bad days and worse days. You've lost your friend, your life has been threatened, and the world has gone mad around you. But you don't stop living because of it. Mira wouldn't want that."
She put down the pizza. "How do you do it? See what you see, deal with what you deal with, and still... function?"
"Because if I don't function, the bad guys win. It's as simple as that."
"You better brace yourself for a Spanish inquisition when your parents return," Samar said later, slipping the window curtain back into place. "Your neighbours have started giving us disapproving looks."
Sanika strolled into the hall, one hand rubbing her wet hair with the towel slung over her shoulders and the other one carrying a small tray with two steaming mugs of tea. "What did you expect? This is a residential area and my parents have been here for more than two decades."
They had been drenched down to their shoes by the time they reached home on his bike, but Sanika had never enjoyed a bike ride more. It hadn't been a heavy rain. More like a continuous drizzle and surprisingly not much traffic for a Friday evening. They had even made a quick stop at the police station because he had to talk to someone. He had asked her if she wanted to trade the bike for a Scorpio and grinned at the crestfallen expression she'd tried to hide. So they had ended up coming home on the bike.
Now both were once again dry and warm. She in a purple V-necked t-shirt over a pair of dark grey capris, while he was in a grey and dark blue striped collared t-shirt over a pair of dark blue jeans.
"I'm surprised they haven't asked you what is going on," he said, taking one cup.
"The aunty two doors down to our right did ask me," she replied, picking the second cup.
"And?"
"I told her," she shrugged and sipped her tea.
"Told her what?"
"That the case would be filed and investigation would be carried out on the two guys you arrested that day only if I..." she gave a meaningful pause, "agreed to your... conditions."
He looked aghast, his face resembling that of a thundercloud, before it sank in that she was pulling his leg. Something in his expression must have clued her in because she carefully placed her cup back on the table, preparing to run.
"Thamb, Sanika Joshi," he muttered, pouncing on her. Oh no, you don't.
She was fast, he had to give her that. And as slippery as an eel. Twisting out of his arms, she ran, putting the couch between them. As if that would stop him, he scoffed before leaping over it and effectively caging her between the wall, the couch, and himself. Trapped and nowhere to go, her eyes darted this way and that before she careened into him, fingers racing over his abdomen and waist, tickling him for all she was worth.
Caught off-guard, he stumbled back, trying not to squirm under those merciless fingers. Her eyes lit up with pure devilry.
"You're ticklish!" she laughed, unerringly going back to the same spot that made him yelp and convulse in suppressed mirth. "I can't believe Samar Rane, DCP Crime Branch, nightmare for the criminals, can be tickled like a three-year-old."
"Sanika, s-stop," he backed out and howled as her fingers found that spot again.
"I wonder what would happen if they knew," she advanced towards him and laughed when he backed up. "They don't have to use their fists. No hitting," she was overcome with hilarity. "Only tickling."
Sanika didn't know how it happened. One moment she was tickling him and the next, both her hands were gripped and pulled over her head, her chest mashed against his, and she was staring into his disturbing dark eyes that were filled with laughter and a promise of retribution.
Laughter died as she noticed how much she had to look up at him. His shoulders and chest dwarfed her, and again she wondered what sort of work he had done that had developed his torso to that degree. Slowly he reached out, and his hand touched her hair. Everything in her became still while his fingers sifted through the short strands. He didn't say anything. He lifted his other hand, and his palms cupped her face, his fingers gliding lightly over her forehead and brow, down the bridge of her nose, over her lips and jaw and chin before sliding down the length of her throat. Her breath had stopped, but she didn't notice.
"Samar, no," she whispered, but her eyes were closing as warm pleasure built in her, her blood beating slowly and powerfully through her veins.
"Kitee soft." So soft. His voice roughened even more than normal. He felt her softness, her warmth, and the gut-wrenching pleasure of her breasts flattening against the hard planes of his chest.
"We shouldn't do this," she managed to say, turning her head aside, evading his lips at the last nanosecond. She brought her hands down and pushed lightly at his shoulders.
"Why not?" he murmured, tracing her cheek with slow kisses. His tongue touched the sensitive hollow below her ear, and her hands tightened on his shoulders as wonderful little ripples of pleasure radiated over her skin.
Her sense of self-protection made Sanika push at his shoulders again, and this time he slowly released her. "I can't do this," she said in a low voice.
"Why?"
"I'm not interested in affairs," she stated, hoping the tremor in her body was not obvious in her voice.
"And you think I am?" He looked angry and offended. "Goddammit, Sanika!" He didn't get a chance to finish as his phone rang. With a soft curse, eyes still locked on hers, he answered. "Yes?" Sanika watched shutters fall on his eyes, his body tightening, moving away from hers. "When?" the question shot out like a bullet. "Where?" He gave a small nod. "We're on our way."
Sanika straightened, a chill creeping up her spine. He said we. Why did he include her? Unless... Unless...
He ended the call and looked at her. She had her answer.
Shratz!
End of Chapter Ten.
© 2025 Atharva Inamdar. Licensed under CC BY-NC-ND 4.0. Free to read and share with attribution.