"Goodbye Maya. Till next time."
Maya Ganguly has always felt a sense of loneliness in her heart since the time her elder brother had run away from home. Fourteen years ago. But things were finally looking up when she was able to convince her parents...
The blind man's voice didn't sound as croaky as before. I spun around to see that he was no longer bald and instead had a shock of black hair. Neither did he have the traces of a beard or a moustache anymore. The man opened his broken sunglasses and there was the detective sitting on the bench where the blind man was sitting just a moment ago.
"I knew it," I said, "Are you stalking me or something?"
Rakesh got up from his bench and walked up to me.
"Ms Ganguly, I am not stalking you. You must listen to me."
"There's nothing more to listen," I exclaimed and continued on my way.
"I know I was wrong in lying to you. But I had no choice. I knew you wouldn't take me with you if I didn't say that I'd help you," he said, following me with brisk steps, "You have to stay with me!"
I turned around. My head was still throbbing from Mom's call and I didn't want to talk with the detective at this moment.
"Alright, I have to stay with you. Either way," he stuttered, a little bit taken aback seeing the frustration on my face.
"I don't want to have anything to do with you anymore, Rakesh," I said, "You don't have to help me. Please give me some respite and don't help me anymore. I know you are a good detective and a mostly good man but I really need to go back home now. My grandfather is dying!"
"I know where your brother is," he said, his words hardly reaching my ears.
I shook my head as I listened to him.
"It doesn't matter, Rakesh. I won't search for him anymore. He had made a choice of running away from home and he made a choice of not returning back again. I don't need him in our family if he thinks he doesn't need us."
Rakesh bit his lips and nodded.
"I am very sorry, Ms Ganguly," he said, "I hope you can forgive me."
"Why were you in disguise anyway?," I asked.
"I'll tell you later. We need to get out of this place immediately if you want to reach Kolkata by tomorrow night. I think Sukhiji can help us," he said, going ahead of me and pulling me towards our car. My initial anger was now replaced with confusion. The detective seemed to be genuinely afraid this time and was turning around to look back with every other step.
As we passed the Keventer's shop, I noticed something that scared me further. There was the man with the fresh scar on his forehead whom I had met while cutting a ticket in Sealdah, sitting inside and drinking a cup of tea. Our eyes met for a fraction of second and he winked back at me.
Rakesh's hand was now so tightly bound onto my wrist that it was hurting me.
"Rakesh, what is happening?," I asked, "There was a man who I had seen in the station who just winked at me. Is he following you?"
"No, not me," he said.
He suddenly pushed me into a memento shop and I collided with a couple.
"Hey, what do you think you are doing?," I asked.
The couple and the shopkeeper looked on in amazement as the detective leaped across the counter and crouched behind it to hide himself. I looked outside and saw a police officer walk past. As soon as the officer disappeared in the distance, Rakesh leaped out of the counter.
"So sorry about that," he apologised to the owner and then took hold of my wrist and started pulling me again. But I had enough of this. I yanked my hand free.
"Tell me what is happening now!," I exclaimed.
"Look, I made a mistake okay," he said.
"You make a lot of them. Which one are you talking about now?"
"I am a police suspect for aiding and abetting the murder of the politician, Mr. Guind," he said, "That's why I was in disguise."
"What? WHY?"
"I will answer all your questions, Ms Ganguly," he pleaded, "But please let's get going now, for both of our sakes. I'll tell you the rest on the way."
He sounded pretty desperate to me so I followed him back to the car without any further talking. I informed Sukhiji about Grandpa's health and how we needed to reach Kolkata as soon as possible. Rakesh meanwhile stood on watch, his observant eyes scanning through each and every car and pedestrian who passed us by.
I had thought Sukhiji would throw a fit or ask for insanely high wages for asking him to drive us all the way back to Kolkata but his reaction was completely different.
"My business may not be at an all time high and neither may I be able to see my family every day because of that. And that's apart from the fact that I don't even like to drive. But if my customer is in any kind of trouble, then Sukhiji will always be there to help. I will help you reach Kolkata by tomorrow afternoon or else my name isn't Sukhiji," he said beating his chest with pride.
"Thanks," the detective and I said in chorus.
We got into the car immediately. Sukhiji started the engine, put on a Kishore Kumar song on the radio and we were on our way home.
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