Sub-Inspector Priya D'Souza closed her notebook, set down her pen, and looked at the man across the table.
Rohit Kaul was exactly what his statement suggested — controlled, articulate, and performing a version of grief that was either genuine or expertly curated. He wore a linen shirt, expensive but wrinkled, the stubble of a man who'd missed one shave, not two. His eyes were red but dry. He'd cried, but not recently. He'd cried and then stopped and then come here to confess, which suggested a man who processed emotions in stages and was currently in the stage labelled "action."
Priya was thirty-two, daughter of a Goan police inspector and a schoolteacher, educated at Goa University and trained at the National Police Academy in Hyderabad. She'd been in the service for seven years, the last three in Anjuna, which meant she spent most of her time dealing with tourist complaints, drug offences, and the occasional property dispute. A murder — if this was a murder — was unusual.
She noted three things about Rohit's statement that he probably hoped she wouldn't notice.
First: the bruises on Meera's wrists. Rohit's account placed him in the kitchen at the time Meera went to the terrace. If he didn't grip her, who did? The bruises were fresh — within hours of death. Someone held Meera's forearms with force during the evening. Rohit's statement didn't explain this.
Second: Kavya's secret. Rohit claimed Kavya told him something that "changed everything" but refused to reveal what it was, saying it was "Kavya's part of the story." This was either respectful or strategic — by withholding, he controlled the narrative's momentum. Priya would have to hear Kavya's version to fill the gap, which meant Rohit had ensured that his statement was incomplete by design. A storyteller's trick.
Third: the timeline. Rohit said Meera went to the terrace at 1:45 AM. He heard Kavya's scream at 2:10 AM. Twenty-five minutes. What happened in those twenty-five minutes? Where was Kavya? Where was Rohit, exactly? The kitchen was on the ground floor; the terrace was on the first floor, accessible by an exterior staircase. Twenty-five minutes was long enough to climb stairs, have a conversation, and return.
"Mr. Kaul," Priya said. "The bruises on your wife's wrists."
Rohit's composure flickered. "I don't know about those."
"Your statement describes a calm, kitchen-table conversation. No physical contact of the kind that leaves bilateral bruising."
