Maria walked out of the Coimbatore airport, stopped for a while and breathed in the air. She couldn't recognise it. All familiarity had been replaced by another city and her hometown suddenly seemed so foreign. Maria sighed and approached the taxi stand. Her mother had made it a point to teach her Tamil and teach it well. She hopped into a taxi and headed for her old home.

To be honest, Maria never really wondered what had become of the house. She was too young. And young children, although impressionable, have a short attention span. In a new city, with the help of a child psychiatrist, she had settled in, gone to school, made new friends, and the memories of that fatal night lay in a dust-covered chest at the back of her head, forgotten. Maria barely noticed the city but she watched her silhouette against the setting sun and his purplish orange hues. The taxi sped past every insignificant detail and by nightfall, it slowed down. Arun, the taxi driver, rolled down the windows and poked his head out, asking passerbys for directions. And soon, there it was, standing in the dark, her old home, waiting to be awakened.

Maria absent-mindedly paid the fare and nodded at Arun. She did not seem to notice the taxi leave. Maria stared at the house, standing outside the old and mouldy wooden gates. After what seemed like an eternity, she unlatched the gates and walked in.

Trees and shrubs, which were once part of a beautiful garden, now unkempt and wild, loomed dangerously on the right side of the compound. Maria shuddered at the menacing sight, tore her eyes away, and walked down the graveled path leading up to the eerie house. She climbed up the marble steps and ran a finger across the dust-laden bronze nameplate, the words 'The D'Souzas' engraved on it. The doors were locked but Maria had stolen her mother's copy of the keys before leaving. She unlocked the rusty locks and the hinges creaked as she swung open the wooden doors.

The house bore little resemblance to Maria's memories of it. Someone was obviously in charge of caretaking but they weren't doing it very well. Maria switched on the lights. They flickered for a long time before casting a dim light across the hallway and the corridor. Maria shivered. The house was cold and unforgiving.

Paint and plaster had mostly eroded away to expose cement and often, bricks. There were dust and unsettling cobwebs in the nooks and corners, the crevices. The two bedrooms, the kitchen, the dining room and the bathrooms had furnitures covered in dust-ridden white sheets, and the wooden stairs creaked and cried with each step, threatening to cave in.

Maria slowly walked into her father's old study. It was the last place she wanted to be but it was the one place she had to be. She swallowed her fear and turned on the lights. Maria had forgotten how big the study was.

Tall bookshelves stood against the walls leaving space for two arched windows on the back and the left, draped in thick dusty curtains. The crimson and golden yellow carpet required serious cleaning. A dust-layered heavy wooden antique work desk stood in the middle of the room, in front of a window, facing the door. And an old wooden chair with a cushioned backrest and broad armrests sat beyond the desk, riddled with cobwebs.

Jonathan D'Souza was a strict man when it came to his study. He did not like Maria playing on it's carpeted floors. But she sneaked in anyway. Having grown up she realised that her father probably knew, and she smiled. He was a faint memory, a man who was taken before he could become her friend. But he was a memory that sought to be avenged by the daughter he had barely known.

Maria looked around, trying to locate the bronze flower vase. She remembered it used to sit on one of the shelves on the right wall, right beside her father's framed accolades. The accolades were taken by her mother when they moved but there was no vase either. Maria assumed that it being the murder weapon was in the police evidence lock-up. And she also knew that there would be no prints on it. She remembered Gonsalves wiping them clean with a white handkerchief.

Before flying to Coimbatore, she had made good use of her friendship with Inspector Gowda. Although he was a member of Karnataka Police, he was a resourceful fellow. He took forty-eight hours before informing her of the status of Jonathan D'Souza's murder case. It was certainly open, without further leads, and had been buried under heaps of files.

Maria had learnt that the police had no suspects. They made a small note of the victim's daughter having possibly witnessed the murder but it led to nowhere and her vague description, 'the bad man', was quite unreliable. The interesting part was this - there was no evidence available that a second person, the killer, had entered the house or left it. Maria's nanny, Rakti Amma hadn't seen anyone entering or lurking around when she left at around ten thirty that night. And there were no fingerprints, no footprints, no reliable eye-witnesses and nothing inside or outside the house to suggest the killer's presence. Naturally, Maria wanted to begin at the house but the dim lights weren't helpful. She would come back the next morning, work in the daylight.

She locked the house carefully and prepared to leave. The house being on the outskirts of the city, it was inconvenient for her to book a hotel for the night. Besides, Maria knew that if she showed up at Rakti Amma's place, the now old woman would welcome her with grandmotherly arms.

As she checked the locks, she heard shuffling and soft crunching, like footsteps on dry leaves and twigs. Someone was there... In a swift motion, Maria swung around, took out her phone, and flashed it's torch at the unkempt trees in the garden. A silhouette dived outside the light and ran for the gates. Maria ran after him and pounced, tackling him face-first into the gravel. But the man was quick. He twisted around and landed a fierce punch on her ribs, almost cracking them, threw her off him and ran away. Maria, breathing heavily, stood up clutching her ribs. Her phone was still on the ground, it's torch lighting up the area. She picked it up and pocketed it. Maria did not get a good look at the man but she knew that she felt a gun concealed on the small of his back when she pounced on him. No, this was not random. Maria realised that Gonsalves knew what she was upto. She needed to be careful. Quietly, she dusted herself and left, locking the gates behind her. And then she broke into a sprint...

© Tejaswinee Roychowdhury