Promises are meant to be broken

Chapter 19

20 July, Thursday
7 am

'How hard will it be to butter up someone? She won't eat me alive because of it, right?' Meera debated with herself, standing in front of the brewing ginger tea. Reading the case report and hearing Annika and Vikram trying to solve the case verbally the previous night had caught her interest. She'd spent the whole night thinking about it alongside reading Panchtatva online.

That helped her in predicting something, which she believed to be ninety percent true. But there were ten percent chances that the prediction might mislead the ongoing investigation.

Still, she wanted to take that risk.

So, what was better than a cup of kadak adrak wali chai to make Annika sit and patiently listen to her words even for two minutes. After that, she could peacefully go to the Oberoi Hotel to make arrangements for the press conference set up by Business Association without prior notice.

It had already stopped raining four hours ago, but she'd to wait till the water logged roads were cleared.

Meera could've spoken about this to Vikram, and that would've been much easier thing to do. But something about that man and his personality piqued her curiosity. When she'd tried to read his eyes while dancing together in the party, she saw him transparent. As if the man had no second face. She couldn't find a single secret in eyes that he was trying to hide. Instead, they kind off shone with constant confidence.

What he was, he was on the face.

For the first time in her life, she came across a person with this category personality. And that caused number of questions to be lined up in her mind. That's why she decided better not to loose the track of the case and made a wise choice, which was Annika.

With her eyes on the boiling tea, Meera, along with her thoughts, travelled back to the previous night.

*_*

Flashback,
12am

"So Victoria was once a part of under twenty national swimteam." Annika repeated Vikram's words, unfolding her arms and striding to the white board in front. Ignoring Shivaay, who was keeping his one eye on his laptop screen and other one her, she scribbled the word swimmer on the white board under Victoria's photo.

"That's just not it." Vikram added, standing behind her. "I spoke on call with her teammates. They said that most of them didn't know, but Victoria would stay underwater for eighteen minutes without breathing and with her eyes open. Victoria called that ability of hers as in-built one." He disclosed the information he got and then left her to ponder on it.

They had already discussed about the possibilities of Victoria plotting Sameera's death either with Akhram's help or he got to know about her involvement. In that sense, it could be said that he went to her either to discuss or to confront. Then, the motive of murder was clear. But considering that way, how she got her hands over the Phosgene gas was big query.

Shivaay google searched the chemical name. After scrolling through, he informed them that MU (Mumbai University) had itself held a chemistry exhibition two months ago. And Phosgene gas was displayed in it along with extra precautions.

This had Annika instantly jump into action and make few calls before getting in touch with the Chem Lab head of MU. They weren't surprised when, after being virtually threatened by Annika, the lab that admitted that the very small amount of liquid Phosgene gas stored aside for further study was indeed missing. He claimed that the bottle was at its place on Saturday when he closed the lab. But while checking again on Monday before closing, he realized that the bottle wasn't there.