Being in Kamla Sharma's house was the most awkward, yet eerie experience I have ever had. The silence seemed almost menacing, and although the collection of books in their house wasn't anything out of the ordinary, it all seemed out of place.

As if peace wasn't supposed to be here....

Or as if serenity had visited the place after a long, long time.

My time of inspection ended as soon as Mrs. Kamla entered the living room with a tray containing two cups, preferably carrying actual tea in them.

I looked at the swirling brown liquid inside the cups with apprehension, making up my mind to not accept it. I had been warned about such things by Akshay on the way to her house. He said that we weren't allowed to accept anything to eat or drink from potential suspects, which I had had no problem accepting, giving full credit to my paranoid self.

I smiled lightly at her as she pushed one saucer towards me while handed the other to Akshay. Akshay sat next to me, still unreadable as he was in his work mode, and began the questioning.

"So, Mrs. Kamla Sharma, how long had you and Mr. Ashish Sharma been married for?"

"Twenty-five years."

She replied without adding or subtracting even a single word. As if she knew what was about to come at her and was already starting the answering machine that rambled on without a glitch or pause.

"Hmm... that's a long time. And, how many kids do you have? Can you give us their descriptions?"

He questioned further, obviously moving on from the easy ones to the harder ones.

"Just one. One son, his name is Karan, and he is seventeen years old. Studies and lives in a hostel in Dehradun."

She said, referring to the nearby town popular for its strict rules in schools and hostels, thus ensuring proper education.

But what disturbed me the most was that she was awfully unperturbed by this all. She didn't even feel the need to look at Akshay in the eyes, or have a speck of emotion on her face. Her answers seemed to be revised and edited a hundred times, then said over in mind repeatedly until they are learnt by heart by the speaker.

My visit here will be deemed useless if she kept on this way and I didn't intervene it change the course of this interrogation.

Kamla Sharma was a hard nut to crack, but I was surprisingly completely accustomed to it.

"We will come to the topic of your son later on, but I want you to describe your husband. What was he like during everyday routines, and how was your relationship with him throughout these 25 years? I want to know every little change, every little detail."

Akshay asked her, his sharp gaze not letting the woman leave his captivity. His determination and patience in such adverse conditions was really admirable.

"I-I don't really know where should I start from. It's going to be long, and hard for all of us."

She replied, cleverly dodging the question.

Oh, but I forgot one key word. Trying. She tried to dodge the question, not knowing what hawks have come to interrogate her today. She wasn't going to be able to leave our clutches so easily.

"Mrs. Kamla Sharma. I did not give you a chance to avoid my questions. It is my right as an investigation officer to ask you questions, and it is your duty as his wife, to answer them truthfully and to the best of your ability. Your lack of cooperation can land you in trouble and perhaps, in jail too. Please think of your son who would be orphaned, and then take an apt decision."

Akshay all but barked at her.

The more I spent time with him, the more I fell in love with his methods and ways of working. It did help immensely that we were almost in the same field, which made sure I didn't feel like I was out of the loop most of the times.

The frail woman flinched as soon as she heard his sharp voice. Either she thought too highly of herself, or she was a fool to believe that she could walk out of it so easily.

Gathering herself and her thoughts up, she commenced her, what seemed to be a long, monologue.

"My husband was a really kind man. He helped everyone around the neighborhood, and was also very honest. Everyone at his workplace loved him and respected him. He was a very good husband to me too. I really don't know why someone would do such a thing to him. He was an angel for everyone!"

She said, and then started sobbing loudly. She covered her face with her hands and turned to quieten down, but was unable to. I, on the other hand, was puzzled. If she thought so highly of her husband, she should have absolutely no problem in sharing stories about him with us. Then, why on earth did she hesitate?

"Please calm down. We had also gathered from everyone that he was a good man and thus, there shouldn't be a reason for someone to do this to him.
As you know, he wasn't stabbed just once, which could have been mistaken as an accidental attack, but was stabbed continuously for four times in different parts of his torso. And that, we're sorry to say, cannot be considered accidental."

I spoke for the very first time since we arrived at this house. I had to tell her the significance of our visit and the alarming nature of the killer - and I will keep doing that the moment she forgets about it. It might seem extremely sinister to someone who comes to know about my agenda, but I firmly believe that whether his wife is the culprit or not, she is the one who can provide us proper information about her husband.

And sometimes, you just have to be callous to manipulate the other person's mind and extract answers out of them. And it seemed to be working the moment she tensed at my words, looked up from her hands and proceeded to glare at me openly.

"Are you saying that I am lying? Or that my husband was not a good man? What are you trying to prove by saying that miss?"

She shouted at me, almost on the verge of losing her cool and calm persona. She was now giving me the reaction I wished to see - her being flustered was a great improvement from before.

I mentally patted myself on the back before continuing in that monotonous but soothing voice,

"I'm sorry but I didn't personally know your husband, and thus we have come here to find out his truth from someone who knew him too personally. If we write down a list of all the people who knew him throughout his lifetime, I think you would know him the best. So please, stop misleading us and tell us all you know about him. Only then, can you get justice for his mistreatment and-"

I wasn't even allowed to complete my sentence when she intervened me brutally, cutting me off with a loud shriek and shouting out words even Akshay was astonished to hear,

"I DON'T WANT JUSTICE!!!"

Her fragile body started shaking more heavily than ever, and she seemed to be losing a lot of energy. I could see that it was taking a toll on her and she wasn't able to control herself anymore.

"Mrs. Sharma, please calm down. Don't overwork yourself. We'll stop now if it's too much pressure for you. We can come back later-"

"No, you listen to me now. You want to give him justice, but I don't. And I'll show you why."

She cut me off again, and went off in the direction of a random room, leaving both of us in utter silence. The air was thick with tension and neither of us knew how to dissolve it.

When she returned, she was carrying a wet wipe in her hands. I was sure that me and Akshay both must have had the most lost expressions on our face. And it was probably because of the whiplash her mood had given us. From calm and composed to almost being possessed by some demon, she was showing us every emotion in just a span of some minutes.

She sat down across from us and started to rub at her skin furiously. She rubbed at her face and neck with the wet wipe, and what came next was even more shocking. It seemed as if she had covered her whole body with concealer and other makeup stuff, because now her hands and face and neck started to show marks and cuts and bruises which couldn't be seen earlier.

These were the same marks Akshay had seen on her face in the CCTV footage. His face lit up with recognition, but he still couldn't find his voice to say anything about it.

"This- do you see this? Do you see all these spots and bruises on my body? There are old ones which never left my skin, and there are new ones which will probably leave a permanent mark. All of this, is the work of my husband. Good man? Huh..."

She trailed off as she slowly started to breathe again, not knowing that she had already knocked off our breath by that revelation.

"So these bruises, these were given to you by your late husband? He abused you?"

Akshay asked, finally having the courage to say something.

"Yes, that's what I said. He was NOT a good person, he was a monster. Why does everyone worship him? Its because they never got to know this side of his personality. Whenever he was in public, he would always conceal his anger and act sweetly with even the most irritating people, then come home and vent out all of his frustration on me and my body. Since our house is a bit far away from our neighbors, and is made of thick walls, it wasn't easy for anyone to know what's going on here.
I have lived in this hell for the last 25 years, and you want me to gain justice for a man like him? He should have been stabbed at least ten times, no, countless times in his body. He was a shameless drunkard, cheat and abusive man. He deserved a much worse death than this."

She took a deep breath after saying this, but she still didn't seem to stop shaking, as if she was remembering all those moments of pain and difficulties.

You can really never know anything about someone. They can pretend to be so decent and mannered from outside, but can be such an untamed beast inside the house. I felt too bad for her and almost forgot the purpose of my visit when my thoughts were yet again, interrupted by Akshay.

"You are... rejoicing his death? Wishing for more pain to be inflicted on him? Are you the killer?"

Kamla Sharma turned completely pale at this question. I wasn't sure that I was actually seeing this sight,

That I was actually in front of the murderer.

But before we got to know if that is actually true from her own mouth, she collapsed on the couch.

"What a day it has been."

Akshay commented dryly, before proceeding to lift her up and take her to a hospital.

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