She

She is, as he sees her, a small woman. He sees the small fingers that clutch the bars of the grilled gate like an anxious child; the small ears that the cropped hair like that of an army man cannot cover; the small waist unencompassed by the sari on which are visible loose folds of skin, the sign of old age, and a small scar made by a surgeon’s scalpel; the small feet that rub against each other at times showing her restlessness - something the tranquility of her form is perhaps trying its best to hide. Is she really a clever murderess made restless by his presence (does she even know he is here?) or are these the signs of absorbed grief?

He has been given the task of finding that out. He is nervous himself. He is a rookie; having joined the police force not weeks ago, he is a good choice to probe a murder that nobody is bothered about, yet the end-result of which seems clear to most near him. Hundred to one the wife did it, his boss has told him. It’s a no-brainer, you just have to go there and tighten the particulars so that the defense gets no space to maneuver, another of his friends has said.

They would know; they have been in the department for a long time.

But now that he is here, he is not so sure. She looks too frail to commit the violent killing that she has been accused of. He has seen pictures of the crime scene; the man while sitting on a sofa was murdered by someone who had repeatedly bashed him over his head with a stainless steel pan. The pan was found lying on the blood-stained sofa next to the body with her fingerprints on the handle. She was his wife, and the case as far as the police were concerned was over. He has been sent to complete the formalities and gather some safe experience in the process; he cannot possibly bungle such a straightforward case.

One of the few things in life that make him afraid is an unexpected silence. Because of this weakness in spite of his better than average looks he has been a failure with women. He is not a great talker, nor can he cope with the awkward drop of sudden silences that a conversation now and then sidles into when the thread of a topic has been stretched too far. He has this propensity to rush into those silences bridging them with humorous one-liners. His attempts usually fall flat earning him suppressed snickers at his inanity, and one more of his numerous dates goes for a toss.

A while ago, when he arrived at the doorstep of this house, he was greeted by the same old enemy. He had shambled over the gravelly path nervously like a schoolboy to his first debate expecting to be heckled by an angry household. The gravelly path ended in a small flight of dirty steps leading up to a matted portico and thence to a white single-paneled door that was slightly ajar. With effort he had suppressed the urge to peep inside the house through the slit. Those are the traits of a common detective, not an upright policeman he told himself, and looked for the absent doorbell. After half a minute of fruitless search he decided he would have to make do with knocks on the white panel. He knocked twice on the door, two powerful knocks, and climbed down the flight of steps to wait on the gravelly path.

That’s when it hit him – the house was unexpectedly quiet. There was not a drop of sound plopping against his eardrum. The leaves of the unknown tree in the garden, but was it a tree or was it a shrub and he pondered over the doubt for a moment trying to extract from a long unused corner of his brain what differentiated a shrub from a tree before the menacing silence dragged his thoughts back into the scrimpy realms of fear, were motionless. He could not hear grating windowpanes, noises from the scullery, human voices trying to communicate, or when he looked the other way, sounds from any vehicle moving on the stretch of the road as far as his ears could hear. Even the bluebottles were silent.

What is this house he wondered? Perfect for a murder because no sounds escaped its walls? Or the most unsuitable as even the slightest scream would light up this cove of silence, bring forth unsuspecting eyes to enquire as to the scream’s whereabouts?

He climbed the flight of stairs and knocked again. Thrice this time, and then he scurried back to his waiting place as if he suspected a phantom would emerge out of the door any minute and chase him down the gravelly path. How he with such a craven disposition had become a policeman of all things, he wondered to himself with self-deprecating smile and an incredulous shake of the head.

When even the wait of a few minutes after the second bout of knocks proved useless, he decided perhaps he would have to enter the house uninvited. He tiptoed up the steps making as little a noise as possible and peeped inside the house through the thin opening hoping to see a human form that he could call to get a formal invitation. His hopes were in vain; all he could discern from his safe harbor were a couple of wall hangings made of small chiming bells (or bells that should chime but were now obstinately silent), a wall clock, and one-half of a wooden cupboard on the top of which was kept a salt-dispenser, a jar of pickle, a big box of matchsticks and a few glasses. He had an idea. He bent down, picked up a small chunk of gravel from the mat, and aimed at the glasses. Perhaps the loud clink of the impact would alert some denizen to his existence. Hope takes time to die. He missed.

He entered the house then, into a drawing room partitioned by a white chintz curtain dotted with big purple circles. The curtain was closed. To his front was a door leading into a narrow passageway; he could see doors on either side of the passageway.