Murder in Goa by Ranjana Joshi

Author:Ranjana Joshi [Joshi, Ranjana]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Published: 2023-05-17T16:00:00+00:00

Chapter 18

Time to Die

After dinner at a nearby shack, they returned to their rooms. Disha and Ajit were back from the police station but had made it clear that they weren’t in any mood for discussion. Aarya understood. So many hours at the station were enough for anyone to feel like pulling their hair out.

Aarya switched on the air conditioner and stretched her legs on the bed to relax when she heard a scratching sound from outside. Baloo was sitting in front of the door, hoping to be let in. She gave the dog some biscuits and some chicken pieces she had specially brought for him from the shack. With Sahil gone, no one was really ensuring that the dog get his meals on time.

Baloo gobbled it all up and curled up under the table while Aarya thought about the case. Everyone had some motive or the other, but none seemed strong enough to kill. She racked her brain, trying to understand how the poison got inside Sahil’s system if both the food items had no traces of it. There was no other food that the forensic report showed in his stomach as well. So, he obviously ate nothing else.

She checked her LinkedIn messages. Shruti, her friend from IISc, had replied.

“It was difficult to find out whether Disha has projects dealing with poisonous substances without really telling anyone the reason for such enquiry. Anyway, I found out what you wanted. I had to go on a lunch with an insufferable person for that. You owe me a big one for this, Aarya. The only toxic substance that Disha uses in her experiments is Carbon Monoxide gas. Nothing else. I hope it helps.—Shruti.”

That was a dead end. But Disha could still have got it from some colleague or even from the jeweller. Aarya did not know how labs stored such chemicals, but she was certain that if you knew the right people, you could get your hands on some.

After some minutes of useless rumination, she took a stroll on the beach and clear her head. She sat outside to find out if social media would give her anything. She was getting a mild headache and thought the cool breeze outside would help her. Baloo looked up as she went out, cocked an ear, but stayed inside.

“I’ll be back soon,” she whispered to the dog, who wagged his tail sluggishly in reply.

She ran along the beach on the soft sand. Running always helped her think. So did punching, but she didn’t have her punching bag here. She really missed it now.

She sat down on a rock at some distance and pulled out her phone. Sahil had predominantly focused his social media on the resort for the past two years.

Disha was almost non-existent in all social media, except for the annual ‘Thanks for the birthday wishes’ post. Her accounts were mostly inactive. She was tagged in a few photographs from the IISc campus—dealing with conferences, talks and the like.

Dilip seemed not to have any social media accounts.

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