The Trail to Spring

Chapter 33

"What do you want?," I asked trying to be as brave as possible. I loosened my grip on my teddy bear. I was squishing it.

"Follow me," the man with the scar ordered.

He led me to a black Honda City and pushed me inside. He got in the driver's seat and started the engine.

"Where are we going?," I asked.

"You know where," he answered and drove past the detective's place and Sukhiji, who was still dozing.

I put the teddy bear inside my backpack. The man remained silent for the rest of the trip and I thought it best not to disturb him either.

We passed Santoshpur and Golpark. I knew that we were going to Mr. Barui's place, but I had no idea what for. For starters, he should have captured the detective and not me. I simply had nothing to do with him.

The car slowly rolled into a big compound and stopped in front of a bungalow. It was huge and seemed to have been built a long time ago, maybe before Independence. I really liked the old world feeling of these types of bungalows and I would have readily accepted to visit this place even if a man had not been pointing a knife at my back.

I entered through the front gate and found myself in a hall. Paintings by a variety of renowned artists were put up on the walls and every inch of the place was filled with decor and mementos that I figured Mr. Barui had collected from his visits to various foreign countries. I understood how Atifa must have felt when she had first come here. It was actually really overwhelming.

My eyes fell on a cabinet and I saw the weapon that Atifa had warned me about before. There was the revolver kept in a glass case. A shiver ran down my spine.

A small stairway in the left led upstairs and the man asked me to go up. We found ourselves in a corridor with three rooms on each side with one at the extreme end.

"Give me your phone," he said gruffly, piercing the edge of his knife's blade slightly on my back. I winced.

I took out my phone from my pocket and handed it to him. The man pushed me inside the room at the far end of the corridor and locked the door behind me.

This room was far shabbier and smaller than I had expected. Almost half of the room was filled with unused and broken almirahs and desks and the sort and there weren't any windows which started to make me feel suffocated. But all these things I noticed later.

My eyes first travelled to the man who sat on the slightly discoloured sofa, with his brown eyes trained straight at me and which I felt could see right through me. Mr. Barui sat without a trace of that welcoming smile that I had seen on his face the first time I had met him in the detective's place.

"Come sit here," he said, patting on the sofa beside him.

I hesitated.

"No need to worry," he assured me, "I won't do you any harm if you don't give me any cause to. I am not a villain, Maya."

I slowly came and sat beside him. He poured a glass of water and held it in front of me.

"You are very pale," he said in a surprisingly caring tone. I felt as if he genuinely wanted to make me feel at ease. I drank the water that he handed to me.

"Maya, do you like to hear stories?," he asked.

"Mr. Barui, I am in a hurry at the moment," I said, ignoring him.

He made a clucking sound in his mouth.

"Ah, yes, your grandfather. Your friend had told me all about it," he said, in a morose tone, "I know what you must be going through. Don't worry. I'll take you to the hospital myself. Just answer me now: do you like to hear stories?"