I told Meera I'd found out about the affair. I told her calmly, without the planned theatrics, without the public humiliation. Just the two of us, in our kitchen, at one in the morning.
She didn't deny it. She didn't cry. She sat at the kitchen table and said: "I was going to tell you. I was looking for the right time."
"There's no right time for this."
"No. There isn't."
We talked. For an hour. It was the most honest conversation we'd had in years — maybe ever. The architecture of avoidance that we'd built around our marriage came down, wall by wall, and what was left was two people who'd loved each other and failed each other and were now sitting in the ruins trying to decide what to build next.
At 1:45 AM, Meera said she needed air. She went to the terrace. I let her go. I stayed in the kitchen, drinking water, thinking about what Kavya had told me, trying to process the night.
At 2:10 AM, I heard the scream.
Not Meera's scream. Kavya's. Coming from the terrace.
I ran outside. Kavya was at the cliff edge, leaning over the rail, screaming. Meera was not on the terrace.
Meera was not anywhere.
I looked over the cliff. In the darkness, twenty-two metres below, I could see a shape on the rocks. White dress. Dark hair.
I called the police. I called an ambulance. I held Kavya, who was shaking so violently I thought she was having a seizure. And I stood on the terrace of the house I'd bought to save my marriage, and I understood that the marriage was over and the woman was dead and the guilt was mine.
Not because I pushed her. Because I spent two years pushing her away. Because I managed her instead of loving her. Because I treated our marriage like a company and our problems like quarterly losses and our love like a product that could be optimised.
I killed Meera Kaul the way you kill a garden — by not watering it. By assuming it would survive on its own. By being surprised when it didn't.
That's my confession, Sub-Inspector.
That's my version of the truth.
[End of Rohit Kaul's statement]
