Suddenly a lot of things started to make sense to me. The reluctance of Uncle to speed up the investigation. His focus on the medical report.
For someone who was a devoted religious person, an unmarried pregnancy of his daughter would be unacceptable and a total nightmare. Something worse than his daughter passing away. It would destroy his personal beliefs, his social standing and his family name. Everything could be ruined.
Though I could never agree with or understand his thought process. I at least understood the reasons for his recent weird behaviour.
While I was lost in thought, Uncle added.
"I thought my daughter knew me, and I knew her. I thought she knew what was acceptable for me and what wasn't. Clearly, I was wrong. I guess maybe I should have been clearer to her. Agreeing to her request to marry a Christian boy was already my bottom line. I don't know what to think about anything anymore.”
Even though I was still shocked, I wanted to get more information.
"Did Priya tell you this herself?
"Not in those words. Priya called me a week ago before she was supposed to come. She told me she had something wonderful to tell me. Something that would really make me happy. Despite me repeatedly asking, she wouldn't tell me what. She said she would only tell me once she reached here in person.”
“As you know, things haven't been great between us since she was adamant about getting married to you. Even though I finally agreed, I was still having trouble accepting it.”
He continued speaking while I kept my silence.
"I couldn't think of anything she could tell me that could improve my mood. Not until I thought of this. She must have thought the news of a grandchild would cheer me up. I can't think of any other grand news she could tell me. Thus I didn't dare to face her when she came here. I shifted to our guesthouse the day before she arrived. I had been there drinking non-stop. You can ask the caretaker there, in case you have any doubt.”
I couldn’t keep my silence anymore and asked the most pressing matter in my mind.
"But she never explicitly said she was pregnant. It could have been something else.”
"Really? Then why don't you tell me what this great news could be? Don't pretend like I don’t know that you had gone to visit her a couple of times in the past year.”
I couldn't argue with his logic. And I couldn't come back with any other explanation for the good news either as I know no small news would be enough to cheer Uncle up.”
"I don't remember about any travels to meet Priya in the last year.”
I replied shamefully.
"Yeah. You and your partial one-year amnesia. Now get out from here. I don't know what I'm going to do once the medical reports come out. Now get out. Let me mourn in silence.”
I quietly left the place. There was a lot on my mind. I had found far more than what I had bargained for with my interaction with Uncle. I also had a lot of things to think through.
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My mind was still overwhelmed with a lot of things when I got back home. Way too many thoughts, to be honest.
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I just wanted some peace to think things through.
When I entered my place, I realized Mary was still there. She was waiting for me.
"So, how did it go?”
I told her about my conversation with Priya’s mom and Dad. She was genuinely surprised.
"Pregnant? Are you sure?”
"Well. Not completely. But uncle seems to think so.”
Mary was lost in deep thought. I told her to go home and take some rest. I wanted some time alone as well.
After she left, I started searching around the house. I knew I had the habit of saving all my bills. I wanted to see if I could find anything about my travels that Uncle had mentioned.
After searching the entire house, I finally found the bills inside a box in the cupboard. Going through them, I found what I was looking for, Train tickets to Trivandrum.
I discovered that I had travelled 3 times to visit Priya in the last year.
The first time was a month after Priya left. The second time was after another 4 months. And last time was five and half months since then, which meant one and half months before she came here. So practically, she could have been pregnant if we had gotten physical. But I found it very hard to accept. Even though Priya used to like to play around, she knew her boundaries. And I trusted myself to have some restrain.
All of this was getting too complicated for me to sort out. After spending some time thinking, I decided to revisit the Inspector tomorrow.
I was too tired to do anything else anyways. I didn't remember when I fell asleep. I just wished I wouldn't have any nightmares tonight.
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The following day, I called the Inspector and made an appointment to meet him at his office.
When I reached, I could see he was waiting for me in his cabin, smoking a cigarette.
"Hi, Jacob. So how are you? Feeling better?”
"I'm ok. I had some recent findings which I wanted to share with you.”
"Same here. But I will let you go first.”
I told him about my conversations with Uncle and Aunty and my findings regarding my travels last year to meet Priya.
"That's very interesting. It explains the weird behaviour of the Judge. And it should also be straightforward to verify if he was exactly where he claimed to be that night. But frankly, I doubt he would lie. On the other hand, the whole pregnancy thing sounds dicey to me. We should get the doctor’s report soon to confirm. There were some technical issues, due to which it got delayed. I'll let you know as soon as I get an update.”
"Thanks. You said you also had some new findings.”
The Inspector took another drag from his cigarette before he spoke.
"Yeah. I do. Actually, after listening to what you said, it makes more sense now. I had reached out to the police stations in Trivandrum to check for any complaint regarding or around Priya. Initially, we had got no reports. But we got an unexpected update yesterday. Apparently, a constable recognized Priya from the news and had called in. The constable had retired 2 weeks ago and had relocated. Thus we got this news late.”
“He had an interesting tale to tell us. Apparently, Priya came to the police station around one and a half months ago before the incident to file a complaint. As per the constable, she had come with a guy who seemed like her boyfriend. He said the guy was young and seemed very close to her. I was wondering who it was. But from your travel tickets, we can confirm that it should have been you who had gone to visit her at that time.
"But why had she come to the Police Station?”
"She had come to file a complaint against a guy who had been stalking and pestering her. But unfortunately, she didn't go through with the complaint. She was half-minded about it in the first place, and apparently, the guy who came along with her convinced her not to do it.”
"What? Are you sure?”
"Yeah. Unfortunately, that all we have now. I think the person who was stalking her might have a role in this. I have asked the Trivandrum police to help us investigate this angle. They will send someone to the medical college to figure out if she ever got into any trouble with anyone over there. We are waiting for them to come back to us.”
"Thanks. I think I might have convinced Priya not to file the complaint to avoid the issue from escalating. But maybe I did the wrong thing.”
"Anyways, don't think too much about it. There is nothing we can do to change the past. I shared this news with you to let you know that we are still working on the case and haven’t given up. I'll let you know if anything further turns up. At the same time, do let me know in case you remember anything more.”
"Sure. I will do that. I think I'll leave now. I'll definitely call you if I remember anything more or I find anything useful.”
I left the Inspector’s office at that.
I didn’t let him realize that I was not as calm as I appeared to be. This was the first real lead I had got in a long time. And I was not going to wait around while someone else investigated this. I was already planning on how to get to Trivandrum as soon as possible. So that I can find out what had happened there.
Hopefully, I’ll find more answers there.