Two

7 months ago

-Rehanna-

@-Rehanna-

The interrogation room was a stark and unforgiving space, its walls painted a cold, sterile shade of grey that seemed to sap the warmth from the air. Fluorescent lights buzzed overhead, casting a harsh, unnatural glow that accentuated the shadows lurking in the corners of the room.

A long metal table dominated the centre of the room, its surface scuffed and scarred from years of use, and a single chair sat on either side. The chairs were rigid and uncomfortable, their metal frames creaking in protest as their occupants shifted uneasily in their seats.

A two-way mirror lined one wall of the room, its surface reflecting a distorted image of the occupants within. Behind the mirror, unseen eyes watched and listened, their presence a silent reminder of the gravity of the situation.

Despite its mundane appearance, the interrogation room crackled with tension, every surface vibrating with the weight of the accusations and the desperation of the accused. It was a place of truth and lies, of justice and injustice, where the fate of lives hung in the balance and the line between guilt and innocence blurred like a smudged fingerprint on a dusty pane of glass.

Detective Basak loomed over Aditya, his gaze piercing like a sharpened blade as he leaned in closer, his voice a low growl that reverberated through the cramped interrogation room “Let's cut to the chase, Mr. Hooda," he began, his tone laced with thinly veiled contempt. "Did you kill your wife?"

Aditya met the detective's gaze with a steely resolve, refusing to flinch under the weight of the accusation. "I love Zoya," he replied, his voice firm and unwavering. "I would never do anything to hurt her."

Basak’s lip curled into a sneer, his patience wearing thin as he pressed on with his interrogation. "That's all well and good, but the evidence doesn't lie," he retorted, his voice dripping with scepticism. "We found your fingerprints at the scene of the crime, and a witness saw you leaving the area in distress, care to explain that?"

For a moment that dragged on for minutes, he remained silent, his mind racing as he searched for the right words to defend himself. Feeling a surge of frustration rising within him at the accusation burning like a fire in his chest, he snapped. "I don't know," his voice tinged with anger. "Maybe because I’m her husband? Maybe because I lived there?”

A dry laugh escaped his thin lips, his balding head shiny beneath the lights that danced in dizzying circles atop him as he leaned back. “This isn’t the first time a wife of yours has died, is it? They say lightning doesn't strike in the same place twice, yet here we are; both women who became Mrs Hooda are dead, funny that” his tongue darted out to wetten his lip. 

“No, no, I” squeezing his eyes shut, a frown marred his tanned skin. “I didn't kill Pooja” he spoke through gritted teeth as if it physically pained him to say her name, “And I certainly did not kill Zoya!”

“You really expect us to believe that both of your wives just ended up dead and you” his index finger jutted out at him, “Had absolutely nothing to do with it?” His brow rose in disbelief, he’d heard his kid tell better, more believable lies than this. 

“Frankly” he looked up, eyes as dark as an abyss, “I don’t care what you think, you don’t get to decide if I am guilty, the truth does”.

“Love can be a dangerous thing, Mr. Hooda," he hissed, his voice a menacing whisper. "Especially when it turns to obsession” Basak’s eyes were burning with accusation.

“Obsession?” Aditya screeched, eyes wide and jaw clenched as he looked at the older man head-on. “You think I was obsessed with Zoya?”

The Detective was unmovedby his shock, the scepticism palpable as he leaned in closer, his breath hot against Aditya's skin. “How convenient that the very day you end up running into Zoya in a store, cameras catch you in a very heated discussion that somehow culminates in both Yash, Zoya’s ex-husband and Pooja, your ex-wife, dead”.

His blood ran cold at the mention of Pooja and Yash. The wounds of their betrayal were still raw, their memories haunting him like spectres from the past. "That's not true," he protested, his voice strained with emotion. "I may have been hurt, but I would never... I could never..."

The accusations escalated like a tempest, “You wanted them out of the way so you could have Zoya all to yourself, didn't you?"

“That’s not how, that’s not” he shook his head, “You’re twisting it, it never happened like, I would never-“. Though his words were laced with defiance, his stutter grew into doubt gnawing at the edge of his mind; what if he’d blacked out somehow? Hurt the woman he loved and couldn’t remember? 

The weight of the accusations continued to bore down on him, a surge of despair washed over him like a tidal wave. The thought of being responsible for the deaths of his ex-wife and Zoya's ex-husband was unimaginable, unthinkable, being responsible for Zoya’s demise was a thousand times worse and yet, the detective's words planted a seed of doubt in his mind, a nagging fear that maybe, just maybe, there was a grain of truth to them.

No. 

Aditya pushed the thought away, refusing to entertain the possibility. He couldn't have killed Zoya. He wouldn't have killed her. He wouldn’t have killed anyone. The very idea was absurd.

As if it couldn’t get worse, the accusations escalated once more, each one more damning than the last as the man span a web of lies that wrapped him in a silky trap he could only struggle in but never release himself from. 

“You couldn't bear the thought of Zoya leaving you, could you?" the detective insinuated, his words like daggers stabbing at Aditya's heart. "She found out about your past, about your lies, and she tried to run away. But you couldn't let her go. You couldn't lose her. So you killed her."

His breath caught in his throat, mind reeling from the weight of the accusation. "No, you're wrong," he protested, his voice hoarse with desperation. "I would never harm Zoya. I love her” he slammed his fists atop the desk. 

Undeterred, Basak pressed on, relentless in his pursuit of the truth as he painted a grim picture of the accused’s alleged crimes. "You had motive, opportunity, and means," he continued, his tone unwavering. "And now, three people are dead in the space of three years and the only link between them all, the only individual left standing” he rose to his feet, towering above him menacingly, “Is you” he spat. 

The words hit like a sledgehammer, the weight of the accusations threatening to crush him beneath their unbearable burden. He felt the walls of the interrogation room closing in around him, suffocating him with their silent condemnation. “I didn't do it," he repeated his voice barely a whisper now. "I swear, I'm innocent."

What if the detective was right? What if he had lost control, driven by jealousy and rage? The thought was too terrifying to bear, too monstrous to contemplate. The reality of his situation sank in leaving him teetering on the edge of a precipice, his mind on the brink of collapse. He couldn't bear the thought of being branded a killer, of losing everything he held dear.

***

As the hours dragged on and exhaustion gnawed at his bones, Aditya felt himself slipping further and further into a haze of sleep deprivation. The blinding light overhead bore down on him like a relentless sun, its glare searing through his weary eyes and sending shards of pain lancing through his skull.

Detective Basak’s voice became a relentless barrage, his words merging into an indistinct roar as he screamed accusation after accusation at him, his spittle flying like shrapnel in the air. "Did you kill your wife?" he demanded, the question echoing off the walls of the interrogation room like a deafening thunderclap.

Aditya's lips moved, forming words that felt foreign and disjointed on his tongue. "I... I..." he whispered, his voice slurred and barely audible over the din of the detective's tirade.

"What was that?" He barked, leaning in closer with a menacing glare. "Speak up, damn it!"

He tried to repeat himself, but the words dissolved into an incomprehensible murmur, lost in the fog of his exhausted mind.

Frustration boiled over in him, his face contorting with rage as he slammed his fists against the table. "Are you saying you killed your wife?" he thundered, his voice reverberating through the room like a gunshot.

Just as Aditya felt himself teetering on the brink of surrender, the door swung open with a creak, admitting a figure shrouded in darkness. 

A woman's voice cut through the chaos like a knife, sharp and defiant. "My client will not be answering that question," she declared, her tone solid, “Nor any question for that matter”.

Detective Basak whirled around, his eyes narrowing with suspicion as he demanded to know who the intruder was.

The woman stepped forward, her silhouette illuminated by the harsh glow of the overhead light. "I'm Anushka Raisinghani," she announced, her voice ringing with authority. "And I'm his new lawyer. And let me tell you, Detective, you're in for a world of hurt if you think you can keep my client under duress like this” She levelled a withering gaze at him, her lips curling into a sardonic smirk. "Though I must congratulate you, Detective”.

His brows knitted “Excuse me?”

“You didn’t know? You've just won the award for Most Creative Abuse of Police Power. Shame there's no prize for incompetence, now get out of here so I can speak to my client, ALONE”.