Birthday Present!!! (The end)

After five years of all that drama, I was finally living my sunshine life. I was settled in London, UK. All the pain, heat, heart break was behind me now. Because no matter how much I tried, going back to town was a horrible experience, memories, and memories to haunt me. I did a job in Chandigarh for 3 years and asked for a transfer, luckily within a year, I was transferred to London.

My first few weeks in London were so much fun, I had everything planned for me by my company. So, I took out my map and stood inside it, just like Joey, because it’s “London Baby”. And I traveled a lot, I went to London Eye, Tower of London, Madame Tussauds, I even took a ride on the “hop on hop off” bus. It was fun at the beginning but slowly it turned into my home. The memories of my past started fading and I forgot everything about my past, I knew it happened, but I was not reminding it to myself anymore. I applied for a PR, I knew the odds were thin, but I wanted to give it a try, did I mention I felt like home there.

One fine sunny winter day, I woke up, got ready, booked a cab and went to a Starbucks, you must reach early there otherwise you would end up missing the first meeting of your day. I reached Starbucks at exactly 8:24 am, got my Americano, and left the store at 8:46 am. Ran towards my building, my office was 10 mins walk from there and four mins if I ran between people. And that day I had a lot of time left but rushing people was so fun. I reached my office’s building and I greeted everyone on my way, the zillion guards, the receptionist I wish I could remember his name and the guy who checked my ID card every day. Then I ran towards the lift and made weird eyes, and somebody stopped the lift for me, then I took another one. Oh, it was so fun.

I was sitting in my office, pretending to work so hard on my laptop, while I was looking for the guy who inspired Adele for her album, 21. In that insane moment, I received a call from India. To be honest, I wasn’t all surprised I was expecting it. But not so early, not before I had citizenship of the UK.

‘Hey, yes I will come to India in the next 24 hours’

I booked the next flight, applied for emergency leaves, and left. My brother came to receive me at the India Gandhi airport, Delhi. I asked him to take me straight to the place for which I came to India.

‘I didn’t think it would take you so long to dig.’ I taunted

‘Well, as there is a famous saying in Hindi, Der aaye, durust aaye. Maybe I am late but at least I am finally at the end’ Mr. Singh replied with a lot of pride.

‘You sure? Maybe it’s not the end after all’ I liked messing with his mood

‘We found a dead body that clearly points at you, now there is nothing for you to hide or lie about’

‘I need water first’

I knew this day would come, so I started without wasting any time:

‘Anirudh was already dating Mahira when he met me, I had no clue about her, but she knew about me. One day she came to my college fest to meet me, I was the organizer of the fest and very popular it wasn’t hard for her to find me. She came straight to me just before the fest. She was a tall girl, might be 5’8”, big eyes and dusky skin, truly beautiful. She was that kind of beauty that can be your lady crush. She was scared, angry and she had tears in her eyes. I took her to the cafeteria; I still remember the first sentence that she said to me; “Why Anirudh?” that gave me a little shock because of the age difference I didn’t want to tell anyone about him. And she went; “I love him, I am with him from last 6 years. He has had a lot of girls in his life, during this period as well. But he has never ignored me for someone ever. You are special to him; he spends more time with you. I can’t see all this; you are a teenager, you can get any other boy you like, you have a life in front of you, he is my life.”

I was shocked to hear all that, I was hurt, and I started crying, she comforted me and then I said;

“I am with him from the last two years and had no clue there is another girl in his life”.

“Yes, because he hardly talks to me, he is always with you. All his time, attention, everything is for you”. At that moment I wanted revenge but not just an act of revenge I wanted to destroy Anirudh.’

The water arrived, I drank it and continued;

‘I planned Anirudh’s murder with Mahira, she wasn’t ready, but I had a full proof plan and all the major tasks were mine like murder and hiding the body. So, she agreed. Anirudh obviously had no shame, so he introduced both of us as we planned. And we started having parties at his place and bonded for him.’

‘Then I told Anirudh that I heard Mahira making a murder plan of him, I had a recording of one of Mahira’s calls and I edited the recording and made it as I recorded it from outside her room. He believed me and killed her as I planned.’

‘Then I told Aisha (Mahira’s younger sister) that Anirudh killed her dearest sister, I acted the victim. I told her to kill him by mixing some drugs and alcohol combination. She did exactly as we planned. I told her to wait there for me after the murder and we would bury him. But I went to Neha’s house and we both went to Anirudh’s house where Aisha was waiting for me. At first, she reacted after seeing Neha there, but I told her she would help us only. I went to dig the hole in his backyard and Neha made a drink for all of us. I dug the hole and Neha handed the drinks to us; we cheered and did bottoms up. Five minutes later, Aisha died, again the wrong combination of drugs and drink.’

‘Neha buried Aisha instead of Anirudh and we went to Neha’s house after cleaning all the dishes that we used and all the fingerprints that we might have made. Thank god for the monsoon, the backyard was filled with water all the time, and grass grew soon.’

‘The rest you know.’

I sighed

‘Great, we will have your hearing in three days. Till then you will stay here’ Mr. Singh said in his pride voice again.

‘I am leaving tomorrow’ oh I loved to tease him

‘You can’t. You are a criminal.’

‘Says who?’

‘The hidden camera’

‘oh, that camera. Sorry, I forgot to tell you, but I turned it off when you went to ask for the water. You know even when it was hidden there was a red light on it that really annoyed me, so I turned it off. Hope you won’t mind’

‘If you didn’t want the world to know then why did you confess it to me’

‘Mr. Singh you have given five years of your life to this case. You deserve to know the truth. Plus, I didn’t murder anyone, and I have no idea where the murderer is.’

‘You have no idea where Neha is? You know she is the only person who knows about this’

‘I hope she is fine. Goodbye Mr. Singh. Hope you would sleep tonight’