Jalandhar,
India
Zaara’s home was a huge mansion. It was manned
by two female servants and a gardener. They lived in the annex to the house,
while she lived alone. Mrs. Zaara, as they learnt was a masterchef at
Cardamom at the Taj in Jalandhar. She
was one of the most famous continental cooks in the country and authored many
cookbooks. She was also famous for throwing up lavish parties at her home. She
was a famous figure.
“You can stay with me.” She told Deborah and
Thomas. “I have a guest suite. I’ll ask Vinni to prepare that for your stay. I
don’t want questions from people, so I’ll be telling them that these are
assistants whom I met at Hong Kong. I wanted them to be here to instruct me on
modifications in cooking and taste.” She winked at them. “Make sure you
reciprocate me.”
In the evening as they sat at the dining table
for their dinner. Zaara Asked them, “so how did India treat you so far?”
Thomas sneaked a look at Deborah and answered,
“Pretty bad! We got mugged and then cheated. Actually, madam, as an information
– we are penniless at the moment.
Our passports have been stolen
and we are in an identity crises.”
“Oh my!” Zaara sighed. “ Didn’t you go to the
British office?”
“That would take a lot of money.”Thomas
replied.
“Perhaps, we don’t even want to go back.”
Deborah replied rather hastily as Thomas ended his sentence. She wanted this
interrogation to end.
“Oh, that’s another story entirely.” Zaara
raised her eyebrows as she continued. “This country is full of illegals like
you. They have learnt to put up with them. I don’t think you’ll have much of a
problem here. The midland scum, you’d be.”
“You have offended me more than once Zaara.
Whatever you have with Dawson’s is a personal matter, and moreover in my
opinion John was a really respectable person.” Deborah protested.
“Respectable?” Zaara sounded furious now. “ If
there was someone respectable in that family, that rascal of a man killed him?”
“Hah…your daughter?” Deborah answered
sarcastically.
“William Dawson, if you know him. His elder
brother.”
Deborah froze.
“If you have the mettle to listen then I’ll
tell you all.” Zaara said.
“But how do I know whatever you are telling you
is the truth?” Deborah asked, still unable together herself after what she had
just heard.
“I’ll prove it to you.”
Zaara started.
“A pack of hyenas can sometimes prove too good
for a solitary lion. William Dawson was that lion among the hyenas. A gem of a man, he was a great friend of my
husband’s. The tallest leader in the midlands –his popularity was growing in
the conservative party day by day.An honest man, and an intelligent one on it
–he stood taller than anyone in the conservatives and the labour alike. It
seemed that he was destined to be the most popular leader in the United Kingdom
in many years. He died suddenly in a car crash along with her wife. “
“I know how he died Zaara, everyone in the
Britain knows it.” Deborah remarked.
“So foolish of all of you to believe that.
“ Zaara snapped with a sigh. “Do you
know Carl Kingston and Tim Dickens?”
“Yes. The chancellor of the exchequer and the
chief of Scotland yard.” Deborah replied.
“Good. What you don’t know is that John Dawson
and both of them had been friends since they studied together at Wolvorhampton.”
“That’s good.” Deborah said.
“Yes, for them it was good, but not for others.”
Zaara searched for Wolverhampton university ethnic sex videos.
There was a steamy sex video playing in front
of them.
“Zaara! What on the earth..?” Thomas protested.
“The boy is a British and the girl is an ethnic
Turk.” Zaara continued with her story. “Both were rich and had come to
Wolverhampton for studies, but as the fate would have it, they fell in love
with each other.” She stopped the video.
“The boy is my cousin. My aunt’s son. Palmer –
the most illustrious among the university students. The hottest contender for
the PhD in Political Science, something that John desired as well. Now,he most cunningly came close to Palmer,
so that he won his trust as a good friend. One day he invited Palmer and his
girlfriend to his place for a party. He effectively drugged them and arranged
them to be in a room for the night in that condition. The only thing he
shouldn’t have done is videographing of this film that played in front of you.
Worst still, this was fed in Palmer’s phone and distributed among friends. The
video spread like wild fire. Palmer was accused
of defaming the girl. The relationship broke and the girl returned to
Turkey, where it was discovered that she was pregnant. She was quietly nestled
in Istanbul, where she gave birth to the child who was adopted by his uncle and
aunt at a small Turkish village. As for Palmer, he was so hopelessly drawn into
shame and infamy that he committed suicide. The
PhD went to John Dawson and he joined the conservatives directly after
completion.”
There was a silence. Zaara resumed.
“As if this wasn’t enough, John didn’t stop
there. The next roadblock to his political aspirations was no one other than
his own brother – WILLIAM DAWSON. With him in the scene, John stood nowhere even
on his own home turf. He cracked a conspiracy with the help of his old
university friends and other foes of William – killing him in the accident. He
became the innocent younger brother and scion of the dynasty now – the rightful
heir to his brother’s throne and glory.”
“How do you know this?” Deborah spoke in a
voice that seemed lost somewhere in her mind.
“My daughter, Sarah was married to John. A
proud wife, she entered his home-office one day to hear as he spoke of the
conspiracy. She was immediately confined and scared into submission when she
protested that this was wrong. All her communications were stopped immediately.
John reported that she was severely ill. She was given tranquilizers and
sedatives in heavy doses in the meanwhile. Her trauma continued. She was
brainwashed and deprived of love. Only in the little Deborah – William’s
daughter could she find love. They got exceedingly close.”
Deborah realized that the lady actually knew
the truth. Something that no one else knew.
“John knew this relationship between the two.
Now he played a third game to tame the girl. The bastard even had an eye on the
ancestral property and money. He wanted all of it by himself. He caught Deborah and Sarah red handed having
sex one day, and then played the victim. In this process however, he threw
Deborah away effectively to Portugal. By
this time Sarah had become useless for him. He conspired to get her killed as
well, however, on much insitance from me
, she told me the whole story.”
“Oh god! He killed her as well!” Deborah spoke
in disgust.
“No, he couldn’t do that. He couldn’t kill two
people – Sarah Dawson and Annie Dawson.” Zaara Disclosed.
Deborah was shocked. Her mother was still
alive.
“ Who
was buried for Annie then?” Deborah asked.
That’s where all the new dimensions get added,
dear.” Zaara disclosed. “Everythng about
Annie’s death was an illusion. She had lately come in contact with an Indian
magician – a metaphysisist as he called himself. His name was Gorakshak – the
protector of the cows. He had been in London lecturing about Metaphysics and
the dimensions of the soul – something in which Annie was interested as well.
This man could read faces, and into the future. He controlled the dark realms
of the soul –he claimed. He could somehow guess what’s going to happen that
fateful night. He rescued Annie that night and got her to me. That night, I was
there alone with him and with an unconscious Annie. I couldn’t escape his
intense eyes, and even though I was forty four that time I felt like a twenty
year old girl. He felt like an angel in the bed. I begot him a daughter; he
named her Trishna – illusion. So far as the funeral ceremony I concerned – it
was all an illusion – casted by Gorakshak.”
“As for Annie, he took her to India, and soon
Sarah and me as well. Sarah didn’t die. She disappeared. She is in this country
now – a metaphysisist. Her name was changed by Gorakshak to Tara.”
Deborah listened in awe. “Where is Annie?”
“Not far from here. She bore a son to Gorakshak
as well. They named him Vikas.” Zaara answered.
“At the end, we had our revenge after all. “ Zaara continued. “ John had a weakness for having a
prostitute each night. That’s where Tara and Trishna stuck him. They sucked his
very life out of him and threw his soul into the depths of hell, where he now
burns.”
“Do you know that the poor Deborah burns in
that case now? She is the accused in the case for John’s death?” Deborah was
raged.
“It is because John was about to get what he
did with others anyways. His friends in the government and the Scotland Yard
were behind his life. He was proving a threat equal to his elder brother.
Lately they arranged Jessica Simpson – the pop artist to date him. She was to
drug him that night anyways and poison him. Thereafter they would arrange her
flight to the island of Madagascer for her to live a luxurious life without her
name. We killed Jessica Simpson. The government and yard thought that they had
done their work well, till they found proof of two females there and found
Jessica dead at her apartment. They thought that there was someone who knew the
secret. In order to cover themselves, they dragged Deborah into the case with a
false evidence of presence of her body fluids. We asked Gorakshak to intervene
and help the girl, but he denied saying that god had a different plan for
Deborah and he would help her. That it seemed was certainly right, till we got
the news that her flight crashed here in India –not far from this place.”
There were tears
in Zaara’s eyes. No one was speaking
anything now. There was perfect silence.
