The Trail Killer

Five

Much as the dimensions of the Gupta family home, so too the shrine to Ganesh on top of the sideboard was a humble affair. Framed in an arch of multicoloured cloth and floral ribbons, the brass statue of the elephant-headed, multi-limbed god was one of the few possessions Advika had brought over with her from the old country, and as such would always occupy a very special place in her heart. Each and every morning would see a thorough and loving polish; that particular morning, the act was even more lingering than usual. Rarely in her life had she so desperately required celestial intervention as right at that moment.

The screech of tyres on the street outside came as she was placing the statue back in its arch. Not the same car as the previous day, she noted after a scamper across the room to flick open he curtains, but a sportier-looking number. The occupants were the same however: the blonde-haired detective and her slouchy, bequiffed sidekick. They didn't head across the road to number 11 today, but beelined it straight towards her own front door.

"Prisha! Prisha!"

Advika had her sari hitched up in an instant, began pounding up the stairs, her heart thudding faster and louder than it had at any point since the agonised throes of childbirth. She'd spent the last half an hour praying it wouldn't come to this, but now the moment had arrived what else was she supposed to do? Just what in the name of Ganesh were her alternatives?

The scene awaiting her in Prisha's bedroom was identical to the previous morning. Her daughter's head nodded along to the soulless dirge blasting into her ears, her right hand flicking through a magazine rather than a school book.

This time, however, her expression was more anxious than intrigued at the news the police were knocking at the front door.

"This about dad's car?"

Advika grasped her daughter by each shoulder, gazed into her eyes in that unwavering, wide-lidded manner she reserved for the most urgent of instructions to be followed.

"There's something I need you do, Prisha. Just listen, okay. Please, just listen to me."

Thirty seconds later, Advika finally shuddered open the door. The blonde detective was crouched down at waist height as if she'd been poised to call through the letterbox. Her embarrassed smile was fleeting. Raising herself back upright alongside her colleague, her expression morphed into one of utmost gravity.

"Hello again."

As the day before, Advika took a step backwards into the hallway, ushered Prisha into the investigative limelight.

As the conversation ensued, Advika found herself studying the detective's face closely. Maybe it was the language barrier she'd spent her adult life surrounded by. Maybe, like the correct balance of spice to add to her dishes, it was just a natural talent of hers. But whatever the reason, she was good at reading expressions, deciphering the non-verbal. The detective was difficult to decrypt however: impassive, unmoved, like an out-jutting rock in a turbulent sea. Perhaps the fact a large part her job entailed decoding the expressions of others meant that she'd learnt how to mask her own.

From what Advika could gather - those isolated everyday words she recognised - the brief conversation went how she'd imagined it would. The detective wanted to know where Shivay was, to which Prisha provided the name of the wool factory. With an admirable calmness, Prisha then went to explain how the previous day when they'd called, her mother had forgotten to mention that five minutes after setting off for work her father had returned. He'd been suffering from a cold since the evening before and had realised that he barely had the energy to even drive to work, let alone stay on his feet for eight hours straight. Had spent the rest of the day tucked up in bed.