Dhruva wanted to know who could be the woman in liaison with Ranjit and she said that though he knew that he received the other woman at home, when she herself was away, the woman always ensured that she never left any clues to her visits; her neighbors told her that she always came in a burka, and used to change it at every turn. Well, from the smell of the things in the house, she was certain that the same woman was with him before he was poisoned. He asked her why she didn’t catch her man red-handed with that woman and she said that she felt she had no moral right to do so.

When Dhruva got up to leave, Kavya offered to drive him back to his place, but he said that though that would enable him more of her welcome company, yet he wouldn’t want her to drive an extra meter on Hyderabad roads. Seeing him off at the gate, and espying him as he walked down the lane, she mulled over his words and felt that they conveyed his interest in her, as well as his concern for her. What with her self-worth getting a boost with his attentions, she craved to have more of the same, and as he turned his head towards her on his way, pleased with herself, she waved at him all the way.

Reaching home in an auto rickshaw as he briefed Radha about the developments on the Kavya front, Dhruva could notice a change of color in her demeanor, which he attributed to the feminine proclivity of sexual insecurity. While she sought to probe his mind, as he put the ball in her court with her ‘Pravar might have used Natya to poison Ranjit’ theory, she said that on second thoughts she was veering round to the view that it was the handiwork of Pravar in nexus with Kavya for they had the shared motive as well as the common means to commit the crime. Wanting to have something concrete than her conjecture, when he said that they better waited for Shakeel’s report about Ranjit’s past, she asked him to caution the cop as he might be high on Pravar’s hit-list and added that Kavya too bore a grudge against him and thus can be expected to aid and abet the brat.

What with Radha bringing him back to square one, Dhruva wondered whether Kavya’s confession was but a red herring, all the same seeing a need to extend the scope of the investigation beyond the known characters. He reckoned that when the ill motives of the natural suspects to commit a murder are an open secret, someone with a hidden agenda might be tempted to use that as a camouflage for his subterfuge.




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